


Free the End

by Camilishpilish



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: AND ON THE OTHER SIDE WE HAVE, Action/Adventure, Based on the achievement "Free the End", Can I Even Tag This, Dictatorship, Fear of Heights, Friendship, Gen, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I posted this on a whim after getting approval from a friend, Male-Female Friendship, No seriously this entire fic revolves around them, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Royalty, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Discovery, Self-Worth Issues, almost dying a lot, altocelarophobia, at like the end, being forced to kill, being the smart one, consulting a wannabe hero, deciding to free an entire species and doubting yourself every step of the way, endermen, growing up in a dictatorship, hopelessness, how do they make it out alive???, not being able to kill regardless, overthrowing a dictatorship, probably I mean Minecraft canon is vague, stay with me on this one, stupid ideas that somehow work, way too strong sense of responsibility, when I figure out what tropes ill use, wondering how the other is still alive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 28,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27929086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camilishpilish/pseuds/Camilishpilish
Summary: Psyche has been unhappy with her life for a very long time. When she receives an eviction notice and faces the reality of homelessness, she decides she has nothing left to lose and sets out to do what she always dreams of when she reads adventure books: pack her bags and leave the city of Archon to go and explore the world.It's funny how that leads to her fighting a dragon.
Relationships: Original Builder Character & Original Enderman Character, that's it - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	1. Title Screen

It’s funny how getting an eviction notice would lead me to slaying a dragon. 

The day that letter slipped under my door so many things inside me just snapped. My hope, my patience, my acceptance, even how much I cared. 

Surprisingly, they took with them a big part of my fear. 

Oh, but I’m getting way ahead of myself. 

My name is Psyche, but you can just call me Psy. I am- or, well, sort of used to be a Builder. I’m still figuring that part out. 

I was born in Archon, a mostly Builder-populated city. My childhood wasn’t especially remarkable. I was thrust into the education system and immediately forgotten about, like all Builder children. It's really no big deal. Parental ties aren’t really important to us, not like they are to the Villagers. That’s why we don’t do last names. 

I always sucked at pretty much everything. I got bad grades and I was pretty weak both in battle and in regular sports. I‘m not all that pretty, and I never had much confidence with speaking. I wasn’t picked on, not directly, but I’m still convinced everyone laughed at me whenever I got a paper back.

I wouldn't blame them. After all, they were all amazing, and I just... wasn't. There was Dali, for example. She was the stongest girl at school, and she went on to be part of the army, I think. She had beautiful, black hair that looked perfect even after sports class, and every time she ran her hand through it my heart would sink at the thought of my vastly inferior dull brown shade. She was always team captain and if she wasn't, she was always picked first. And she wasn't scared of anything.

We... were friends once. When we were both really little. She would pretend to protect me from anything I was scared of, which, back then, was just about everything. Eventually, though, she got popular, and I got forgotten. It was to be expected. Why would beautiful, strong and confident Dali even talk to insecure, twig-like and incompetent me?

I didn't manage to make any other friends.

Before I knew it we were all adults, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I got a minimum wage job and a lousy apartment and tried to figure out the failure that I was already shaping up to be. I fit into the city just about as awfully as I fit in at school. I was never a fan of the gigantic skyscapers, looking up at them or down from them made me equally sick. It was almost as if the entire world was about to cave in on me. Whenever I walked past a dark alley, my stomach would turn and could hear my own heartbeat speeding up, and I imagined a thousand scenarios in which my life would be lost in one of them. At night, the sounds of the pistons and redstone contraptions next to my complex would keep me awake, and the air often felt thick and dirty, and I couldn't breathe.

I _hated_ the place.

...

There was _one_ place I liked. A small bookstore in a neighborhood far prettier than mine. It was run by this villager, Sasha. She was warm, and kind and let me read from all her books even though I never bought any. Whenever I was feeling incredibly down, or inept, or just plain ugly, I would step into the bookstore and pick up a random fantasy novel.

Curling up in a beanbag, trying to make my lanky frame into a little ball, I would forget about everything for a moment and imagine myself as the hero of one of these stories. An undefeatable force who stood tall against a villain and prevailed, a kind soul who protected those who needed to be protected and fought against injustice. Everything I wished I was, and everything I was convinced I would never be.

I did read my fair share of non-fiction, too. I was particularly fascinated with politics, strangely enough, but reading about the workings of the systems and seeing them in action proved to be completely different experiences. So I would sit down and read about how everything was supposed to be, and resigned myself to the way things actually were. Another subject that caught my interest were mobs. The concept was clearly defined as any living being who was not a builder, and having seen barely anything but Builders my entire life, I made it a point to learn as much as I could. 

It was in this bookstore where all my craziest ideas were born. I thought about everything, any fantastic posibility for change. I thought about quitting my job and starting a bakery, but... I didn't know how to bake, and the competition was staggering. I thought about writing my own novel, but then again, the thought of the eyes of the world on me was terrifying. I thought about trying to find a partner, but I was paralized at the thought of finding out I wasn´t good enough for anyone to love.

My most persistent thought was that of leaving.

I thought, so often, about what would happen if I just packed up my things and went out into the wilderness, walked along in blissfull isolation, and maybe found a place I could really belong in. I dreamed of making myself a tiny house near the river, or perhaps I could carve a home out of a mountain, or maybe I could learn how to build a treehouse.

Like all my other thoughts, it was always outweighed by fear. There was no way I, insignificant little I, would survive for a second out there.

I was afraid, and so I did nothing.

That is, until that eviction notice slipped under my door and I snapped. With every line of the letter I read a fraction of my life came crumbling down. And when I sat down in my bed, my knuckes white from clutching the paper, I realized I had nothing.

No friends, no confidence, no passion and no home.

I realized I had nothing to lose.

If I was going to embark on the journey that would most likely get me killed, though, I was going to do it right.

The day was surprisingly bright after the rain the night before. I suppose it was kinda poetic, after all, I had just taken the biggest decision of my life. At the time I could only think about the pit in my stomach.

And I had taken the choice, but, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't know how I wanted to do it.

So I went to the place I always went to whenever I was lost.

The door creaked slightly, like always, when I pushed it open. The familiar scent of paper and tea felt like a warm hug. The bookstore was mostly empty, with only a couple of costumers looking around the back. I paid them no mind, instead turning towards the front desk, where Sasha was busying herself with a book that looked fresh out of the printing press.

I stood at the door for a second, before deciding I didn't want to interrupt her and headed to my usual spot in the corner.

Just that second, she looked up, and smiled.

"Hi, Psy!" she said, closing the book and sitting up straighter.

"Hey Sasha." I answered, and tried to smile back. It came out wobbly, a reflection of my current state, definetely. I closed the door behind me and a thought crossed my brain.

"You.. wouldn't happen to know anyone who's looking to buy furniture, would you?"

Sasha looked back at me, raising an eyebrow.

"I think a cousin of mine was looking into redecorating." She said, pointing at the chair in front of the desk. I reluctantly got closer, but didn't sit down. "What for?"

"Ah, well," I didn't look at her directly. I stalled for a second, wondering whether I should tell her about my plans, but eventually deciding against it, "I have a lot of stuff I don't really use and thought that maybe it would be a good idea to sell it?"

Sasha looked at me, raising her eyebrows again. Cold sweat started building on my face the longer she stared at me.

"What's on your hand?"

I whipped my head around, only to realize I was still clutching my eviction notice. I hadn't remembered taking it with me, but then again, I didn't remember putting it down, either.

"NOTHING!" I blurted out.

Now Sasha had a really concerned look on her face.

"Psy, let me see that." She said, commanding and reassuring at the same time.

I sighed, and handed her the crumpled letter, already feeling my face heat up in embarassment. I kept stealing glances at her as she read it, thinking about how now that she definetely knew I had no money whatsoever she would stop being so nice to me and maybe a she would even kick me out of the bookstore and she would know what a failure I was-

"You're getting evicted?" She said, her face visibly relaxing. She looked at me, and probably saw how pathetic I looked, because she just chuckled and said: "I guess selling your furniture makes sense, then."

"Yeah.." I mumbled, finally sitting down.

Sasha sighed. "Do you already have a place to stay? Maybe some friend's house?"

I couldn't lep but laugh a little. "No, I..." I started, "I was actually planning on leaving the city." I twiddled my thumbs, but after a second of silence I kept talking just to fill it. "I mean, I've kinda wanted to just go out and explore on my own for a while now, and I was always too scared to just do it but well now I dont have a house anymore and I thought that well if I'm gonna be homeless anyways then why not be homeless in the wilderness?"

Sasha put the letter down and reached out to take my hand.

"Sweetie, you're telling me you have absolutely nowhere to stay? Wouldn't you rather go to another city, maybe? Or if you wanted to I could let you-"

"No, No, don't worry!" I said, chuckling akwardly. "I don't want to have you have me, I know your house is more than full enough with your siblings and all. Plus, I do really want to do this." I took a second to gather my thoughts. " I mean, I'm a Builder. Before we built all these giant cities and stayed in them, we went around the world surviving on our own, crafting everything we needed and building the coolest things- and I _want_ to do that. It beats staying in this stupid city anyways."

She looked at me worriedly, and I looked back, pleading for her to not argue any further. After a few seconds she sighed.

"Well, if you're really intent on doing this, sweetie, at least do it right." She pulled her phone from under the desk and started typing away. "I'll help you get your furniture sold, and you focus on getting good deals on provisions. Get yourself some weapons while you're at it, there's some pretty nasty monsters out there."

I stared at her in disbelief.

"You're... not kidding, are you? You're- You're actually going to help me posibly put my life at risk for some crazy dream of mine?"

"Well, don't phrase it like _that!"_ She laughed. "It's not like I could stop you anyways. Not with that look in your eyes." She typed on her phone for a while longer, before puting it down. She looked at me again, and smiled warmly.

"Well what are you waiting for, sweetie? I'm gonna need you to send me some pictures of whatever you wanna sell, ok?"

I snapped out of my stupor.

"Yes, on it!" Without wasting a second, I got up to go back home.

When I got out of the store, I stared at my reflection in the shopping window. My own deep purple eyes stared back at me. I wondered what Sasha had seen in them to get in my corner so quickly. But the longer I looked, the more I realized she was right.

She wouldn't have been able to stop me if she tried.


	2. Gamemode: Survival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Here we are at the second chapter! Thankfully I have my pal IMAB reminding me to post, otherwise this would all stay forgotten in my writing app. I'm a bit sad that this fic got so absolutely buried below all the dream fics, so if you're reading this- thanks for giving it a chance.   
> Now that's enough yammering. You're here to watch Psy almost dying!

“Oh, uh- hi?”

The guard turned to look at me with an unamused expression, but nodded as a way to acknowledge me. I gulped, digging my fingers into the straps of my backpack and praying to the heavens that my stomach would just _settle already._

I took a step forward. It was fairly shaky, and my foot felt like it weighed a ton when I set it down. I hesitated. 

“I’m sorry, could I- uh, it’s no issue if I just... I’m gonna just go-“

I picked up the pace and prepared to push open the door that would lead me out of the city, for the first time in my life. A spear was thrust in front of me, blocking my path and causing me to tumble backwards. 

“That’s a way out the city, miss.” She told me, her voice stern and, though perhaps I was imagining it, a little disappointed. I started thinking about what a horrible idea it was and how stupid I was to be _trying to go out the city oh god-_ I caught myself in time to hear the guard add: “I can point you the right way if you’re lost...” 

I paused. Was I lost? I could just tell her I was and act like this crazy idea never happened... I shook my head. What would I go back to? I didn’t have a place to stay and Sasha, bless her soul, had gotten all my stuff sold too. I was in way to deep to give up now. 

“No, I-“ I took a deep breath. “I’m going out. I’m... on a journey.”

I could feel the skeptical gaze even behind her helmet’s visor. 

“A journey?” She scoffed. “I’m sorry miss, but I can’t let an unprepared civilian go out-“

“I’m not unprepared!” I shouted indignantly before I could stop myself. “I mean, I’ve been preparing for this for the better part of a week.” 

As if to prove my point, I took out my backpack and started showing her the contents. 

“I’ve got bread, apples and porkchops to last me at least a week, and- and I bought a full set of stone tools AND an iron pickaxe- after all what kind of idiot would I be if I didn’t know how to mine, haha, right?”

Looking back, I think the guard might have wanted to interrupt, but I was too busy proving I wasn’t going to die that I just kept going. 

“I also got myself a tent and learnt how to mount it on a tree and everything- and I managed to find a bow and I’ve got a stack of arrows- an entire stack! I mean they were on discount and some might be broken but- and of course I’ve got a map and a compass and I did buy myself a healing potion it was really expensive- umm, oh what else... oh, I almost forgot!” I patted my chest, a soft thuck resounding from underneath my shirt. “I also got myself a leather chest plate!”

The guard stared at me dumbfounded for what felt like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds. And then she laughed. I felt myself turning red. Oh, I definitely looked ridiculous, just showing off my entire inventory unprompted, why was I always so- 

“Alright missy, I can tell you’ve actually thought about this,” Questionable, “so go ahead.” I straightened and strapped my backpack back on, swallowing as she playfully slapped my shoulder. 

“But don’t go that far away. You should always be able to come back to the city before nightfall.”

“Ye- Yeah.” I ducked and quickly went through the now open door. As soon as I heard it close behind me, I started running. 

Come back by nightfall my butt! Did she even know how hard it was for me to take the choice to finally get out of there?! I was not going back, I couldn’t go back, I was never setting foot on that city again! I was gonna keep running and never stop!

Okay maybe I had to stop running if I didn’t want to die of exhaustion. 

I doubled over, my lungs burning almost as much as my legs. I breathed heavily, a couple of tears squeezing out of my shut eyes. 

Maybe never going back was... a little extreme. 

I struggled to right myself, craning my neck over to look back for the first time. 

I had managed to run quite a ways away. The city’s walls still looked giant... but they didn’t loom over me anymore. I could barely see anything behind it, just a couple of watchtowers.

I wondered if anyone was watching me from one of them. What would they think? How would I know? 

I thought about Sasha’s bookstore. I would miss it. The warmth and comfort of her bean bags was something I was sure I wouldn’t be able to replicate. Not to mention her glorious scented candles. 

I wondered if there was something else in the city I would miss. I came up empty. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I loathed the place. I didn’t like my job, or my apartment, I had no friends and the city itself always felt like it was caving in on me, and my neighbors weren’t super nice, either...

A bead of sweat dripped on my eye. I rubbed it away. 

I turned around and looked at what awaited me.

Before me was a gigantic valley, the poppies and daisies dotting over the landscape. I could make out a river, in the distance, and the sun reflected agains the running water making it shimmer like diamonds. Behind it, a mountain taller than anything I’d ever seen. The bare stone cut through the sky like a swords, and the few patches of grass became covered in brilliant snow right near the top. 

I took a step forward. 

There was a deep, lush forest on the other side, millions of what I thought were powerful oak trees giving gentle shade. I took another step. A bunny jumped through the trees, a blink and you miss it moment, and I smiled in wonder. This was the world I’d read about, seen in pictures, heard about in passing conversations. I was steadily walking towards the world I had never had the guts to see for myself. 

It felt _exhilarating_. Excitement was drowning me out, and I realized for the first time how similar excitement felt to fear. Or maybe there was always a bit of fear in excitement? But when my fear had paralyzed me, my excitement pushed me forward and didn’t let me stop. My mind drifted away to millions of possibilities. What would I do, now that I was out? What if I found somebody? Would I approach them, would I keep going alone? Maybe I could map out the stars. Would I see them more clearly without the lights of the city? Should I grow my own farm? I would probably try fishing! 

I wanted to see even farther away. What was the view from up that mountain? What did a desert really look like? A swamp? Maybe I could find a place where it snowed all the time. I remebered reading about a place where the earth was divided in colorful layers of clay and sand. I wanted to see it. I wanted to see everything!

Another image came into my head. A small cottage, made out of oak- or maybe a tree house on a jungle tree? What about a sandstone manor? If I found the perfect place, I could build myself whatever home I wanted. The Builders that came before me used to build incredible structures all by themselves. I thought about doing the same. 

I smiled, and kept walking towards the river, daydreaming about a million house ideas. The grass was thick and overgrown (at least for lawn standards) and it cushioned my every step. 

After a while I tried looking to the top of the mountain again. I squinted trying to make out details in the dim light. A little annoyed, I looked up at the sky, wondering why the sun wasn’t doing its job all of a sudden. 

The sunset was beautiful, the sky behind me being overtaken by gorgeous reds and oranges. I appreciated it for a moment before reality hit me. In a few minutes, it would be night, and I wouldn’t be alone anymore. 

“Oh no.”

* * *

So safe to say I ended up running around in the middle of the night like a headless chicken. 

I, like an absolute _fool,_ had just walked for an entire day and now I was completely and utterly unprepared for the night. There was a reason that guard had warned me about coming back before dusk, but had I listened? Of course not! 

All stories had dangers. And I was fully aware that they usually didn’t compare to what the world had in store. I knew of the kind of monsters that could come out during the night, when the flesh of zombies and the bones of skeletons wouldn’t be singed by the burning sun. But I had no idea where to go! I was a sitting (or, well, running) duck in the middle of a wide field. I tried to comfort myself a little. At least, here I had space to maneuver should I come across something. But.. there was also nothing to protect me if that happened. My mind was obscured by panic, my mind conjuring up images of all the monsters I knew existed, even if realistically I wouldn’t encounter half of them in that dimension. On one side of me, the beautiful forest now cast even sharper shadows that could have anything hidden beneath them. Perhaps I could climb up the mountain, for some high ground and all that! 

In the blink of an eye my face was smashed against a leafy mass. The impact of my run was too much for it to take, and both of us tripped and rolled on the ground. I hissed, my face now scratched all over and covered in mud. I really hoped I wasn’t bleeding.

I turned to see what in the world I had managed to collide against, and my blood ran cold at the distinctive, repetitive hissing.

Next to me lay a tall being with inexplicably short legs. Made entirely out of some sort of plant, it shivered and pulsed, the leaves that made up its body shaking with every white flash coming from it’s core. It turned to stare at me, a face of unending, black eyes, seemingly hollow but with nothing but the void behind them. The hissing grew louder, faster, and my heartbeat followed suit. It frowned. I knew it would always be frowning. 

I screamed. 

I got to my feet and ran for my life. The creeper exploded two seconds later, and the tail end of the explosion managed to push me forward even faster, almost making me trip again. I could see everything more clearly now, as if almost dying had turned up the light. Another creeper on my left, locking its lifeless eyes on me. On my right, a rotting zombie whose sole presence made my stomach turn. I could imagine the hordes of monsters that would soon come to follow, and my mind started jumping to all the horrific ways they would kill me. Blown up, eaten, shot or poisoned, most of them ended with me scattered in tiny bits across the grass. 

“Oh my god, oh my god-“

I needed to get somewhere safer, anywhere but here! The mountain continued to be my best bet, and my legs were doing their darndest to get me there as soon as possible, It burned, my feet hammering against the ground repeatedly, barely saving myself from tripping every two seconds. The river was in sight, the goal was close, and once I was on the other side I would be safe.

I froze. I couldn’t cross the river.

Blue skin, falling off their faces in a disgusting cocktail of water and flesh, their hands clawing at the shore, desperate to get out of the water yet only managing to draw what little blood they had left in their hands. One had an eye dangling from its socket, bobbing like the tip of a fishing rod in the agitated water. The other was missing a jaw, but to my dismay, it’s tounge remained, draping over his chest like a tie yet occasionally twitching when it would attempt to groan. 

“Drowned…” I whispered, bile piling up in my throat, a combination of dread and disgust. The river was far to wide to jump across and I didn’t have the time to build a bridge, not with other monsters on my tail, which meant I simply could not cross the river, and thus, the mountain was off limits. But I couldn’t stay out in the open, either! In a frenzy I whipped my head around, looking for an escape. The creatures of the night lingered in the corners of my vision, reminding me of their presence.

A couple meters away. Hidden among the grass was the entrance to cave. It wasn’t high ground- but it was shelter. Maybe it would give me a pipeline through which I could fight any monsters, if they found me. Gathering up strength from nothing, I sprinted all the way, slipping into the opening in the ground. The hole was a lot smaller than I was expecting, and I scratched my arms when sliding down, but I was fine. I took one deep breath and stayed as quiet as I could. 

One breath. A zombie growled above me. I held it as it stumbled forwards, its ragged pants peeking over the opening. 

Another. The zombie took a shaky step forward, and a drop of its blood fell on my face. I forced down my gag reflex.

One more. It kept walking, gaining speed with each step, and after a few seconds it was out of sight. 

I let myself exhale loudly, taking a couple deep breaths. 

“Oh my god- I can’t believe that just worked. Honestly, I should have just gotten killed, I mean, what kind of idiot am I to- AAAGH!” 

My breathing picked up, pain suddenly erupting on my forearm. I looked to see, bile building up in my throat for what felt like the millionth time. An arrow was wedged into my flesh, and I could hear the distinctive sound of a bow being drawn.

For the first time in my life, any and all thoughts left my brain. Running on instincts and adrenaline, I ducked and rolled forwards, narrowly avoiding a second arrow. My eyes started to adjust to the dark, finally letting me catch a glimpse of the skeleton responsible for my agony. In the corner of my mind, I vaguely remember my weapons. I reached out for my bow, before realizing I wouldn’t be able to draw it with just one hand. I reached for my stone sword, instead, and held it in front of me shakily. The skeleton turned towards me and a single idea consumed my entire consciousness. 

_GET._

_OUT._

I stumbled to my feet, almost tripping before I launched myself towards the cave’s entrance. The skeleton shambled closer, and I sloppily swung my sword. I imagine I must have gone into some state of hysterical strength, because out of the corner of my eye I saw it’s head pop clean off. Without looking back, and ignoring the pain in my arm I clambered out the cave’s mouth and crawled out onto the open. 

I still wasn’t safe. 

I couldn’t get up, the pain was starting to take over. I couldn’t get get to high ground, and going into a cave had definitely proven to be a bad idea. I groaned in pain, my mind failing to come up with a way to survive…

until…

I guess I should mention that Builders have the uncanny ability to almost bend the elements to their will, enabling them to build near impossible structures. In my panic, I remembered my time in the school playground, and the trick Dali had taught me to get away from insignificant bugs.

I clawed at the earth, my instincts taking over as I piled it higher and higher in the brink of an eye. Keeping myself on top of the mound, I found myself a couple of meter’s off the ground, on a perfectly stable dirt tower. 

I let out a long breath, finally pulling out the arrow from my arm. 

“Aghhhhh!”Blood dripped from the wound, and I took off my backpack to search for a bandage.

I found the healing potion. 

“I… I really should save this…” I mumbled. The pain was throbbing, giving me a massive headache. In the end, I popped the bottle open and drank a few drops. The relief was instant, but short lived. I reasoned I couldn’t drink it all on the first night… and the thought of ever enduring this again made me shiver. I started bandaging my arm properly, nibbling on some bread. The teachers at school always said to eat if you got hurt. At the time I just wished I wasn’t feeling so queasy. I never wanted night to catch me off guard like that again. 

Shouldn’t be hard, right? I just had to get my act together and _prepare._

The first night of my journey I fell asleep on top of a hastily built dirt monolith. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually a lot longer than my usual chapters, but I couldn't NOT get really into describing how disgusting zombies actually are lol. 
> 
> Next up: Psy gets her act together, both survival-wise and planning-wise


	3. Benchmaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psy gets her stuff together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOODNESS I AM SO HAPPY! You guys- im so glad you enjoyed the last chapters- Even though this fic is still far from being popular what little attention I have gotten gives me SO. MUCH. LIFE!   
> Hopefully this chapter doesn't fall flat.  
> And please tell me if you find any typo's, I'm trash and forget to send the chapters to my beta even though I have one.

That morning, I woke to the pleasant and wonderful smell of BURNING FLESH. 

Once I registered the smell I bolted upright and almost fell off the dirt tower I had built for myself. Shutting my eyes as they adjusted to the growing sunlight, I looked around to see where the smell was coming from. 

A zombie had apparently been trying to get at me, and was clawing at the bottom of the tower. Despite having caught fire because of the sunlight, it looked like it was still trying to get me in a fiery embrace. 

I kicked it away. A few pushes and it crumbled to the ground, slowly turning to ash. I gagged.

With the immediate threat now a pile of dust on the ground, I took a deep breath and stared at the horizon, remembering the night before. I shuddered. 

“Alright then,” I sighed, turning to the burned zombie next to me, “time to get to work.”

There are a lot of bonuses to being a builder. One of them is that the first thing they teach you as a 5 year old at school is to survive. It takes up the entire first two school years, which is a little excessive in my opinion, the concepts are quite basic. But they really drill it into your head- the basic concepts of collecting, crafting and building. 

I guess it makes sense. They’re the base of literally everything a builder will do, from cooking everyday meals to working as a redstone engineer. 

And the first lesson on the first day that Ms. Myrtle made us repeat again and again was simply: GET WOOD 

Wood is, after all, the most malleable material. It’s one of the few things a Builder can properly harvest with their hands alone, and is the basis of many, many constructs. It was a renewable building material and a sturdy one at that, the only drawback being that it could catch fire. And even that flammable property had use: if you have wood, you have fuel, and with fuel and fire you can get cooked meals, warmth in the cold and light in the night. 

And, maybe most important of all, with wood you can make a crafting table- a traditional workspace used to craft most of the objects a builder would see throughout their lifetime. 

I hopped down from my tower and started making my way to the forest. The sun was already high up in the sky, and with no clouds in sight, it looked like it would be a pretty hot day. Just my luck. 

My sight also turned out to have been worse than expected. What from a distance I would have sworn were oaks turned out to be spruces. At the very least, I thought, I would have passed that particular test still, since identifying materials from a distance wasn’t a part of it. But it really didn’t matter. Sure, oak would have been a little easier to work, being a little sturdier, but when it came to crafting all woods got the work done. 

I started running through the motions in my head, squaring up in front of a tree. 

I punched it with all my might. 

Sure, it stung a little, and it was dumb of me to completely forget the fact that I had a perfectly good axe in my bag. Not to mention the fact that gathering wood via punching is mostly seen as a desperate and savage method. But heck, I _was_ desperate, or at least felt like I was. There was something strangely reassuring about it, feeling the wood cave under my fists. I hit harder, faster, until the tree cut right off near my eye level. The leaves crashed against the ground, crunching under their own weight. Step one done.

“Alright, just gotta divide this now- wait why didn’t I use my axe-“ 

* * *

Actually using the tools I’d brought with me, I divided the fallen tree evenly into blocks- exactly one cubic meter of material. Or, well, never exactly in my case. Despite Builders having a natural knack for measurements, my blocks always came out a couple of centimeters to wide, or too short when I tried to compensate. 

I knew all this. My teachers had made sure even I caught it, despite all of them being sure none of us would ever need to actually craft a crafting table, instead of buying one. A block of wood should be cut into four equally sized planks. Less, and they would be to thick to cut, any more and they wouldn’t be sturdy enough to build anything. The planks had to be straight and polished, and no bark could stay on them. It was a testimony to a Builder’s uncanny ability to manipulate materials that all of this could be done with any old stray rock or sharp material at a Builder’s disposal. In the city, they were automated farms and fabrics that produced anything from sugar canes to bone meal- but the best planks were always hand-made— Builder made. 

One of my first four planks came out crooked. It would have to do. 

Four planks make a square, and with a little touch up and a couple of useful cuts and crevices, the square becomes a table. 

The good crafting tables, the ones they sold back at the city, already came with a couple of useful tools to make crafting easier. A handheld saw, a little mallet and even tinier pincers. Mine was awfully barren, but it would do. Maybe I could make the extra amenities later. 

I stared at my work, satisfied. If Ms. Myrtle was here, she would give me… well, probably not a 100, but I think it deserved at least an 87. I’d settle for a 70.

I kept staring at it for a while.

“So… now what?” 

Back in school, this was the end of the lesson. You made your table, got a little star that said “Benchmaking” and got sent off to the recess area and the bunk beds. Since this lesson was repeated at least once a month, the one that came immediately after was always different. 

What had it been the first time?

I guessed it didn’t matter, once you had a crafting table the entire world was at your fingertips. Or at least it was supposed to be. Staring down at the table I’d made, I felt just as lost as when I first went out. 

As when I first graduated. 

It was uncomfortably familiar. The crushing feeling of “Now what?”. I’d made a table, (I’d graduated from school, I’d learned, I’d passed-), but now what? I guessed I could craft tools, (I could go to college, learn red stone), but I already had some (I’d never liked math, would I be happy?). I could start making a farm (I could try making a business) but I already had food, and I wasn’t sure I’d want to stay in this plain and take care of crops (what can you make that anyone would want to buy, idiot?).

The sun was dropping again, and I panicked. How long had I been lost in thought, doing nothing?

The night was catching up to me again, and I still wasn’t prepared at all. 

_Think, think you idiot!_ I told myself, and somehow I settled on something: a furnace. I had to make a furnace. The idea had come from an entirely different class to Survival, having suddenly remembered one of the basic concepts in House Design: A crafting table always goes next to a furnace. They complement each other: a furnace is just as pivotal in crafting as a table is, especially when metals are involved. Not only that, but a furnace meant light and coal. I needed light. 

I left the table where it was, and pulled out my stone pickaxe and shovel. I didn’t have the time to find a natural cave (and really didn’t feel like going back to the one I’d hid in yesterday), so I started digging down.

No, not LITERALLY down! I’m not that big of an idiot! It was a four by four spiral staircase kind of deal, okay? My tools lended themselves well to getting me cobblestone, and before long I had a small furnace in my hands. My mind was racing- I probably had no more than 20 minutes left until sundown, and I still didn’t have shelter. Shelter! Of course, I should have built a house immediately after getting done with the table! My mind was racing, thinking about all the schematics of building. A nice wooden house would be a good start, and I could always upgrade it later- 

I looked at the place where my furnace and table were set. It was… far from the ideal building spot, even by purely academic standards. The river, the only water source near was pretty far away. The trees were plenty, but that meant a lot of shadow for mobs to hide in. If I really was going to build my house here, it would be better to go closer to the river, and farther from the forest…

Man, was I really going to make my house _here?_ It- well it wasn’t ugly, but it didn’t really speak to me, either. The landscape was… a little empty, if I was being honest, and no matter where I put the house in the entire field behind me, it wouldn’t really have an impressive view. Not to mention how ugly a structure in the middle of nothing would look- especially something built by me. 

And, I remembered, I would be completely and utterly alone. I didn’t mind that very much, I was never a people person, but I remembered something or other about isolation being able to make you insane. Being lonely and being _alone_ were two different things, and I was only used to one of them. Here, the closest settlement to me would be the very city I was trying to escape from. 

Maybe I was just being overdramatic. It wasn’t as though someone in the city was coming after me, or anything of the sort. I had to get shelter, whether I liked it or not.

I didn’t really like it, I realized. 

Maybe a provisional dirt house would do for today. 

20 minutes later, I was sitting in the corner of a dirt house that any of my classmates would have laughed at me for building. I was thankful no one was there to see me. I mean- I was a Builder, for crying out loud! What kind of builder makes a _dirt house?!_ The fire in the furnace flickered, wood burning wood just to make me getting light a little more productive. 

I was just here because I couldn’t make one simple decision, I figured. Maybe if I was a little less slow, I could have made myself something a bit less embarrassing. 

I still had to make the choice, though. 

What now?

What did I actually want to achieve, out here in the wilderness?

I’d seemed so wonderful yesterday, when I was daydreaming about all the world had to offer. But I had to settle somewhere, right? I had to decide what I wanted to do, where I wanted to live, who I wanted to interact with. 

Right?

What did I want? 

I mean, I knew I wanted out of the city, but for what? 

I remembered what I had told Sasha, when I decided to leave. I wanted to survive, to test the limits of what I could do, to be a true Builder, for once. 

How did I do that? 

What about yesterday? I was so sure of what I wanted yesterday. I wanted to play in the snow, I wanted to see the jungle, I wanted to feel what the sun felt like in a desert, I wanted to see…

 _You have to_ _pick something,_ said the nagging voice in my head. 

But… why?

Why _did_ I have to pick? I wasn’t in the city anymore. There, you had to pick all those tiny things. Where to live, where to work, where to eat and where to shop. I was in the wilderness, though. Were there any “where”s in the wilderness? 

If I was a character in a novel, what would I want my story to be? 

I made my choice that night. It felt funny, the choice I’d taken had been the one that felt the least like choosing- the least like giving anything up. Maybe all I was was really greedy. 

But I didn’t want to settle down, not yet.

I wanted to see everything the world had to offer. 

I was just going to explore. And no one was there to tell me otherwise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So while this chapter didn't give me as much room for painting atmospheric pictures, I really wanted to explore what Builder school is like. 
> 
> Next up: The night continues to mess with Psy. A first meeting approaches.


	4. Sweet dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't sleep now, there are monsters nearby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody! And thank you for giving this story a chance! To be completely honest, this was supposed to be the chapter where stuff starts going down, but I came up with an extra scene that ended up demanding most of my wordcount. Still, this is where the story really starts, and I'm really exited!

Time passes quickly when you’re not worrying about your life as much. A week had passed ever since I had decided I didn’t need to decide, and I’d barely noticed it. I was starting to really enjoy my time in the wilderness! There’s nothing quite like the feeling of the wind in your face, the grass cushioning your steps and making that _amazing_ crunching sound, knowing you have nowhere to be and no one to disappoint. In the morning, the blades are dewy and green, and the droplets would seep through my boots, bringing a welcome refreshment. When the night was close, the wind got stronger and it’s nipping at my cheeks would remind me to pack up for the day. 

It really was something I needed.

Of course, it wasn’t all blissful walking, that _is_ what nearly got me killed the first time. Though I had enough food to last me a while, I didn’t feel like using it all up and all of a sudden not having anything to eat, so I didn’t shy away from hunting. I’d never been... _good_ at hunting, not the way they asked us to do it at school at least. But then again, that applied to... just about everything. If anyone would have been watching my attempts at hunting a cow, they would have probably died laughing. I mean, funny is one way to describe me running after a cow, screaming at the top of my lungs with my sword held high, and falling on my flat on my face 20 minutes later without any leather for my trouble. 

Another way would be pathetic. 

I had a lot better luck with my bow. My aim wasn’t amazing, but after a little experimenting, I was thrilled to discover I wasn’t half bad. I was beginning to regret not taking the archery extracurricular. It might have made school a little more bearable. 

Cleaning the animals, though, _that_ was an entirely different beast. I was very rudely reminded of the reason I hadn’t butchered a pig since 5th grade. It definitely wasn’t as bad as the zombies, but it was still a lot of blood and the intestines looked like bloody snakes and the tongue was all weird and textured and the smell was _so strong_ and then an eye popped out and it was so _squishy oh god-_

Without the pull of adrenaline, I wasn’t able to hold it in and ended up throwing up a couple of times. 

Apart from a pair of pigs, I also managed to nail a few sheep, which is relevant not only because I'm a sucker for lamb chops, but because that meant I could make myself a bed. It was a shabby thing, just wool bunched up in order to make a couple of wood planks more comfortable, with four little stubs to serve as legs, but it was strangely nice and _definitely_ better than sleeping on the ground. Maybe later I would take the time to knit it into a proper blanket, but my knitting skills were never all that worth it. The bed did significantly add to the weight of my backpack. It’s at times like that I’m really thankful for being a Builder. I’m pretty sure we're the only kind of being that can make an entire bed fit inside a bag like that. But I’m not here to question the workings of my race. That’s a scientist’s job, and you have to have gone to college for that. 

* * *

I think it was the fifth day when I first came across the ocean.

I had already been amazed at the shimmer of the water in a river, but the ocean was on another level! The blue surface stretched to the horizon, the sun reflecting on the ripples like a million gemstones, enough for me to look away the first time I saw it. And the sound! The soft rumble and ripple of the waves as they crashed against the shore, swaying back and forth like a rocking chair. When I first reached the shore I immediately took off my boots, feeling the coarse sand between my toes, just slightly prickly and uneven. The water reached my ankles, and I laughed at the tickly feeling in my skin. 

I kept running until my head was underwater and the only thing I could hear was the bubbles that occasionally escaped my mouth. Fishes swam past me, getting my hair all tangled up, and after a little swimming, I came across a turtle. I ran my hand through its shell, feeling the ridges I couldn’t see.

I spent the rest of that day swimming.

Soon enough, I’d settled into a routine. Waking up, packing up, and walking along the shoreline until I found something that caught my interest, be it an animal to hunt or greet, or a flower I wanted to see more closely. Stopping for something like a picnic if I was hungry, and when the sun started to set, build a small house, or, well something more like a bunker, made out of whatever was at hand. Go to sleep and start over the next day. It was pretty good, having to worry about nothing other than dusk.

Of course, there was one issue in my routine.

Even if I was safe from all the creepy crawlies of the night in my small shelters, that didn’t mean they weren’t right outside.

And they got _loud._

Every night without fail, there would be _something_ making some weird noise outside my shelter. It was terrifying at first, but after you’ve listened to a zombie grunt for 20 minutes without end, it just gets annoying! It really didn’t matter what I tried to do, I could never fall asleep. I tried pulling my blanket over my head, stuffing my ears with wool (would not recommend, very itchy), and I ended up digging in my pack for anything that could help me quench the noise, to no avail. After I ended up laying in my bed with a scarf wrapped around my head and still having to endure a zombie shambling outside, I was just about ready to die.

The zombie groaned. 

I, very annoyed, groaned back.

It didn’t do very much to shut the monsters up, but it did make me feel better, so from then on, I began imitating the noises I heard until I fell asleep. 

It wasn’t an issue until a couple of nights later. 

A creeper had just passed me by. Now that’s an easy sound to imitate: everyone knows how to hiss. But the point is, it was starting to go away and I sighed, happy to finally have some quiet. It lasted for about 20 seconds. 

“Oh come on!” I whispered. What was it now? A skeleton? A spider? A skeleton _on_ a spider?

“ _Rclla!"_

Well, that was a weird noise. It… almost sounded like a voice. If it were speaking through a water tank and a note block contraption that is. 

“ _Rclla.”_ The same sound again, though it sounded a little different. A slightly lower pitch, I thought. I cleared my throat and did the best to imitate it.

“Re- Requela?” I immediately shook my head. What kind of lousy imitation was that? It barely sounded close to whatever sound the monsters outside had made. I tried again: “Ricla.” -now that was a lot better. Still not perfect though. Before I could try again, the monsters outside spoke again. I cursed myself for not relishing the small silence I had brought about. 

“ _Oriz oiu zriz?”_ It’d sounded like a question, though I chalked it up to me giving meaning to something that didn’t have it. I did find it strange that the noise was completely different. In my extensive experience imitating creature noises in the middle of the night, there didn’t use to be much variation. Sure, sometimes a zombie would groan instead of grunt, but it took a seasoned expert to distinguish between the two. 

Was I really considering myself an expert at imitating creature sounds? I chuckled. 

_"Zriz'u ivazrcp uaevx.”_ I turned to the direction of the sound and listened closely, though I had already completely lost all hope at being able to replicate these particular sounds. 

_"Yae zrwvg uaqcavc maz uzesg wv zrcpc?!”_ I thought I recognized this one as the higher-pitched voice that talked first. And I was convinced it was two different monsters. It almost sounded like they were having a conversation! Were monsters intelligent enough for conversation? My mind went back to literally brain dead zombies and creepers who willingly blew themselves up. 

_...Probably not._

_"...Yae pcqcqncp oc siv zclcfapz, pwmrz?”_ Holding back my impressment at any living being pronouncing _that_ , I did wonder what kinda monster was outside my refuge immediately. It was nothing I’d heard before, which struck me as odd. There were very few mobs we hadn’t interacted with at least once in school, and the ones I’d never seen or heard were mostly because they were either too dangerous or hard to capture. Piglins, for example, zombified as soon as they were dragged out a nether portal (not that there were many of _those_ lying around anyway), so I had no idea what one of those sounded like. 

" _Oriz wh wz'u i gwx? Wz oaelx ctfliwv ory zrcwp fpavesvwizwav oiu ua ocwpx”_ I silently prayed that wasn’t what a supercharged creeper sounded like. 

Neither of them said anything for a minute, and just as I was about to happily sink into my cushion, the deeper one answered. 

_"Wz saelx ilua beuz nc i zpiffcx ufwxcp.”_ It sounded uncertain, and maybe a little annoyed. I was too interested to be properly disturbed now, even if I could already feel my eyes struggling to stay open. 

_"Zrcy uiwx rclla!”_ The other one answered immediately. I tried to imagine what they were doing out here. Maybe the lower-pitched one would get annoyed and eat the other one. _"Yae rcipx zriz! Oc rijc za iz lciuz srcsg.”_

_"...Hwvc. Nez W'q zcllwvm yae, zrwu wu i oiuzc ah zwqc.”_ Just as I was pondering ignoring the sounds and just going to sleep, the wall of my refuge started breaking down. 

I shot up immediately. There were two of them, so there was no way I could bolt out the other side and make a clean escape. I didn’t think any mob could break down my walls! My panicked mind spun around the small room, the almost rhythmic hitting at the dirt around me being a ticking clock to my doom. The shadows were growing larger and I felt smaller and smaller and whatever was at the other side of the wall was going _to rip me to tiny bloody pieces and-_

The bed. _The bed!_ Without thinking, I slid in the minuscule space between the mattress and the floor, sucking in my stomach to do so. I had just enough time to suck in air before a block came off my wall and I had to hold it. 

I knew what it was before it even stuck its head in my space. After all, there is only one creature in the world, other than a Builder, that could manipulate dirt in such a way that a neat, perfect cubic meter square came out of my wall and straight into its long-fingered clutches. 

There was nothing short about an Enderman, after all. 

It got the block all the way out, gazing inside. 

My lungs burned from my lack of breathing, but I couldn’t afford to make the slightest noise now. 

The monster gazed from side to side, it’s pitch black skin melding with the shadows.

In contrast, it’s purple eyes shone through like spotlights. Its lanky physique was very similar to a Builder’s, but its arms and legs were way too long for it to be normal, not to mention the way its elbows and kneecaps protruded out weirdly. Couple that with the lack of sclera, and you’ve landed yourself straight in uncanny valley. 

It looked around for a while before it spotted the bed. I froze. Its eyes widened, and he opened his mouth. 

_"Wz'u i Newlxcp raqc. Oc rijc za mcz aez ah rcpc.”_

Just as quickly as it had come in, it stepped back and placed the block back in its place. A few seconds later, I heard the tell-tale sound of teleportation, twice. Thankfully, something I was able to recognize. I released the breath I was holding and found myself gasping for air. 

What had just happened? Had the Enderman thought there was no one there and given up? Why had it looked in the first place? It felt like they’d... heard me, but if they had, why didn’t they keep looking?

The Enderman had almost looked… wary. 

I crawled up from under my bed, my mind still racing with ‘what was that’s and ‘what if’s. I shook my head before I could really spiral to the point of feeling sick. It was the middle of the night. This really wasn’t the time for me to question the workings of an entirely different species. 

I let myself fall on my bed. I was out like a light before I even hit the pillow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. We have our main creatures everybody! I wonder if anyone will take the time to figure out enderman speech...  
> Anyways, please tell me how you found the chapter! I'm still new at this writing thing (at least publicly) and would love to have some feedback! Predictions would also be fun, though the small previews I give might make it easier...  
> What if I make it extra cryptic today? 
> 
> Next up: Psy meets... someone. The story begins.


	5. Time to Mine!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't look up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY FOLKS!   
> We're finally here huh. In this chapter lies the first pivotal scene of the fic. Honestly this is farther than I made it the first time I tried writing this story and I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself. I won't hold you off anymore, go enjoy the chapter!

I looked down at the bare handle in my hand. The head of the ax was still stuck to the tree trunk. Well, half of it, anyway. The other half had crumbled down and laid miserably on the floor, now nothing more than a pile of pebbles. Even though it wasn’t the first time the head had come loose, there was no way I was fixing it now. 

There went 20 coins, I thought. 

I huffed and stared at the tree. I’d managed to cut it halfway before my ax broke. 

Could I punch it to submission? Yeah. But I really didn’t feel like it. 

Punching trees down _did_ take forever, and with my furnace eating wood like a rabid colony of termites just to give me light in the night, it would be a lot better to just make myself another one. 

I should have gotten myself an iron one by now. I chuckled. How long had it been? Two weeks now? Well, I’d definitely broken some sort of record. Officially, I was the Builder who’d taken the longest to upgrade their basic tools. Hurray! 

I should go out to mine, I figured. After all, I had that spiffy iron pickaxe that was still aching to be used, and apart from getting iron to upgrade the rest of my tools (and maybe even enough for some armor…), it would be nice to get some coal instead of relying on wood to make more. I was pretty sure mined coal burned longer anyway, though I could be completely off. And who knows, maybe I would even come across some shiny, shiny diamonds…

Nah, that was hoping for way too much. Still, mining was definitely on the to-do list. 

Yeah. 

...

The second I really considered the idea, the image of a skeleton peering out of the darkness solidified in my mind. The minimal light reflecting off its boney face and the immeasurable pain in my arm, the warmth of the blood trickling down my sleeve... 

I shook my head. That was just bad luck! There was no way I was getting ambushed like that again! I would make sure to keep my sword at an arms reach and I wouldn't run into anything! Yeah!

I gulped anyway. Caves were, by definition, dark, and whenever there was darkness there were monsters. Still, what kinda choice did I have? I had to get materials, and the only way to get them was to mine them myself. After all, what kinda idiot would I be if I didn't know how to mine? What kinda Builder would I be if I was... scared to mine? No, I had to mine. Not only for the resources but my own dignity. Having no one around to disappoint didn't mean I still couldn't disappoint myself. 

Funny things, expectations. 

I didn't have many preparations I could make, anyway. I had already packed everything I owned that morning, so I just took the time to craft as many torches as I could. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and tried to bury the rising feeling of dread in my chest as I started looking around for a cave. 

* * *

What I found was much, much worse. 

...In my opinion at least. 

I think I could have handled a cave. Just a regular old cave would have been perfectly _fine_. I would have even settled for a creepy, abandoned mineshaft!

But of course, I had to find a _ravine_ , of all things! 

I swallowed.

The ravine cut through the ground like a gaping wound, or maybe a tear through fabric. I cautiously stepped slightly closer to the edge and peered down. The cave went down for what felt like forever, the ground being nothing but a line far, far away from me. There were ores there, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a lava lake, but I couldn't really look any closer before I stepped back, my breath quickening. 

_Nuh-uh_. There was no chance in the nether that I was going down there. If I was already terrified of caves just because they were dark, then there was no way I could handle being at the bottom of that thing with the constant threat of the walls caving in on me. I stomped my foot on the ground. Not gonna do it. I was just gonna find another cave! 

_'Ravines are a blessing from the sky when it comes to gathering resources!'_

Ms. Myrtle's voice rumbled in my head. I frowned, knitting my brows. 

Well, I... I didn't care. It was still scary! 

_'Every kind of ore you can imagine can be found in a ravine! And the sunlight reaches the bottom, so no monsters will willingly hang around there'_ I... I guessed that was a solid argument. But what about getting down there in the first place, huh? I had a ninety-nine percent chance of falling to the bottom and splitting my head on that perfectly monster free floor! I shuddered at the mental image of my bloody remains on the stone. 

It didn't matter that I could literally find all I could possibly need in there, or that it would be safer from monsters, I was _not going in,_ and the version of Ms. Myrtle that lived in my brain couldn't do anything about it!

Just before I turned around, I spotted a lake on the other side, maybe 30 meters away, that fed into the gaping ravine. 

_'Come on Psy, don't be a scaredy-cat! If we fall, the water will stop us anyway, so there's nothing to worry about!'_

The memory of Dali hit a little harder than Ms. Myrtle's. She... was right, though I hated to admit it. As long as I climbed down following that stream, I had nothing to fear. That didn't mean I was any less afraid, but it _did_ take away all my excuses. If I was so scared of running into a monster, then a ravine was my best shot, no matter how much of a personal vendetta I had against them. 

I hugged myself, unsure. I really didn't want to go down there. But... I was an adventurer now, wasn't I? What kind of adventurer is scared of what's arguably the _safest_ kind of cave out there? What kind of explorer refused to enter a new environment? If I didn't go down there, if I didn't have the guts, then did I really deserve to be out here, doing this crazy thing? 

I dug my nails into my arms and sighed. Ten minutes of dragging my feet later, I found myself scaling down the side of the ravine.

While I was still terrified of falling, I didn't trust myself to be able to get down swimming. I really envied the folks back at school who managed to swim up waterfalls, because whenever I had to do that I ended up giving out 10 seconds after I started. 

The water of the stream sprayed my face, which I thought was at least a bit refreshing. The thought couldn't stay in my head for long, though, it was blocked by the stream of ' _oh god'_ s and _'im gonna fall'_ s. My fingers would start bleeding soon with the force I was pressing them against the wall with, but I was shaking too much to really notice. 

One step, two steps, take out my pickaxe and carve myself a path. The rough edges of the stone walls were getting between my nails, and my legs threatened to give out under me with every movement I asked of them. 

I slipped.

The world swam for a moment and I screamed at the top of my lungs before I managed to catch onto the ledge I'd been standing on.

My shaking got worse, and I felt like I was making the stone vibrate around me too.

For some reason, I looked down and almost puked: I was still quite a ways up. I fumbled around until I managed to grab my pickaxe again and swung it against the wall below me, the rock crumbling and giving way to a new ledge. 

I swung down and did my best to catch my breath before pushing myself further. 

Being at the bottom of the ravine didn't do much for my racing heartbeat, either. I was forced to remember _exactly_ why I hated ravines with a passion. The second I put my feet on solid ground and looked up my vision swam and my legs finally gave out under me. Now on the ground, I closed my eyes just so I didn't see the walls of the ravine going so far up and closing in on me every second _and oh lord i was going to be buried below a pile of rocks and dirt and no one would ever find my body!_

I shook my head. I had to concentrate! Just get my butt off the ground, get some iron and get the nether out of here! I shakily got up. One step at a time, I began exploring my surroundings. There was a couple of iron ores a little above me, and i thought i could see some gold a bit farther away... 

A little ways ahead, the ravine intercepted into a cave. I saw something glistening inside. 

The materials I needed _and_ a way out of this awful, awful place? Sign me up. I ran towards the opening and lit a torch to guide my way. 

I lost myself in that cave without even realizing. An iron cluster, the shine of lapis and the promise of gold lured me deeper and deeper inside. I had completely forgotten my waryness towards the darkness, and what lurks in it. 

After a while, I came across a strange kind of rock. I'd already run into some diorite and other such materials, but this dark stone was completely alien to me. It didn't look _exalty_ like obsidian, even if it was remarkably close, so I trusted my iron pick to be able to take care of it. 

The rock crumbled away and I had to cover my eyes not to be blinded by the sudden glow. Amethyst! Little glowing, jagged stones covered the walls of the little pocket of magic I'd found. The purple cristals, transparent enough to reflect and multiply the little light from my torch were growing into the size of swords, and a low, musical chime permeated the air. 

I stared at it dumbfounded before I smiled and went to collect a couple crystals. With each of my steps they would resonate, creating a delicate melody. I jumped around a little, marveling at the sound. Just to play around further, I let my backpack fall, the weight of it's contents actually cracking a couple of crystals. Oops. I shrugged. 

Carefully, I started to pull out a larger cristal from its place. The world fell quiet as I worked. 

I heard footsteps. 

I froze, remembering everything I'd been worried about before entering, and mentally scolded myself. What was out there? Was it coming closer? The footsteps sounded louder now and my mind was racing. Could I get out fast enough? Should I stay and pray I wasn't noticed? 

The footsteps stopped.

And before I had the chance to think anything of it, I heard a low, distorted voice say: 

_**"Don't. look. up."** _

It'd spoken. Whatever was behind me had talked, and I had _understood_. The fact didn't register properly in my brain, and before it could, I heard the telltale sound of teleportation. And the musical chime of someone landing to my right. 

And, like an idiot, I looked up. 

Our eyes locked. The deep purple of it's eyes seemed to almost swirl, the outer edges being marginally lighter than what i had to assume was it's pupil. It's eyes narrowed, and for a second I thought it's expression was almost... pained. Out of the corner of my eyes I noticed the rest of it. It's skin blended seamlessly with the darkness behind it, and if it weren't for the fact that it was standing on the reflective crystals, I could almost imagine facing down a pair of disembodied eyeballs. 

It almost seemed like a better alternative. 

The enderman stared at me for what felt like an eternity. 

Then, it lunged. 

In a split second, I was pinned against the wall, the amethyst crystals digging painfully into my back, my arms uselessly pinned by it's claws. I couldn't struggle, not with how much I was shaking. It's claws started to dig into my skin, and I whimpered. 

One second, two seconds, my heartbeat rang in my ears, only being outmatched by the loudness of my thoughts.

I'm going ot die. 

It hurts, _it hurts, im going to die, this is how it ends, is this how it ends?_

_Rclla._

The word came to my brain in a flash, the memory of a recent night reawakeing at the sight of the same deep purple eyes. 

Shakily, out of breath and not sure what it would accomplish, I choked out:

"Re- Rclla." 

The enderman froze, the pressure in my wrists easing marginally. My eyes widened. That was a reaction. It had done something.

The enderman squeezed my wrists tighter and produced a disturbing, pained noise. 

What had it done? 

It shut it's eyes, and I followed, bracing myself for my inevitable demise. Would it be painful? In my dying moments, I couldn't manage to remember any accounts of how brutal endermen could be. 

.

.

.

The blow never came. 

The pressure on my wrists disappeared the second the chime of teleportation sounded again. I cracked my eyes open. I was alone again. The only proof that anything had ever been in the geode with me were the thin strands of blood trickling from my wrists. 

What had just happened? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader, how I wish I could see your faces as you read this chapter just to see what kind of a reaction I got from you. You can still let me know with a comment! This is a chapter I might go back and edit based on feedback because it's so important. Apart from.. the obvious, Psy's altocelarophobia (look at me doing research!) is something I want to keep bringing back. I hope you're excited as I am to see this fic continue!
> 
> Next up: Psy looks for answers.


	6. Aquiring Hardware

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psy searchs for answers. The search is made slower by her own doubts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is late because I missed my reminder! But anyways, today is a bit of a slower chapter, but Psy needed some time to process what happened last chapter.

The night before still haunted me. And it had been night, I'd found out after I'd hastily made my way back outside and had to run for cover. Even then, I stared at the dirt ceiling of a shelter that would have definitely crumbled if I'd been anything but a Builder, questions prodding at my head like attacking missiles. 

What was that?

The questions followed me like a shadow throughout my entire day. I took the time to melt the iron I had managed to get from my expedition, and almost burned myself in my distraction. An Enderman had attacked me and I had lived to tell the tale. A tale no one would believe: when had it been heard before that an Enderman simply... left? Sure, Endermen were not usually aggressive, but I had looked that one square in the eye. Once that happened, the only way for the confrontation to end was death- be it mine or theirs. 

Out of the iron I got I made myself new tools. An ax, a sword and even a shovel. I almost made another pickaxe before i realized I already had one. My thoughts came back to the mine as i made a bucket instead. They'd spared me. They had looked at me in the eyes and decided to teleport away. 

Why? It couldn't be that they were scared, I mean, one look at me immediately told you that I was about as strong as a peanut. I chuckled as I stashed away the little lapis and redstone I'd gotten, not even thinking what I would use it for. And the confrontation itself couldn't have told them anything different, they had me pinned down! 

Not to mention... well, I shook my head at the thought, and tried to concentrate on loading coal into my furnace. It was ridiculous! But still...I couldn't help but think they'd spoken to me. 

'Don't. look. up.'

The memory was as clear as day, and still, I couldn't believe it. There was no sensible way an Enderman could talk, after all! And still, I'd heard those words right before they showed up. And that voice... the way it rippled and almost seemed to get stuck at times- there was no way it was human. I dismissed the thought. Even if they'd said something, with all the weird noises endermen made, there was a high chance I'd just heard something that wasn't really there. How would an enderman learn human speech? 

Had it been what I'd said? 

"Rclla." I tested the word again. At the very least, a word was what it felt like. It was hard to pronounce, my throat catching on it more than once. It felt heavy and thick as well. I'd heard endermen say it before, and when I'd used it, it'd made this one react. What did it mean? 

I realized when I'd almost cut my hand off with my ax that so many questions were eating me alive. I had to do something about it all, but what? All logic told me to forget the entire ordeal and move on with my life. But I knew myself well enough to know that wasn't happening. 

Could I find them again? Hold them at swordpoint and demand answers? Endermen didn't burn during the day, so there was a chance, however slim, that I could find them without having to go out during the night. Still, even if I found them... would they be able to answer me? Would I even recognize the one that'd spared me amongst the millions of Endermen out there? 

I swung my brand new iron ax with perhaps a little more strength than necessary and finished bringing a tree down before I threw my ax to the ground in frustration. 

"WHY IS THIS ALL SO COMPLICATED!" I screamed, only managing to feel marginally better. I wanted answers goshdarnit, and even if I could never get them I was still going to try. 

* * *

And try I did. For an entire. week. 

Bunnies and pigs turned out to be wonderful at giving me false hope whenever I saw movement behind a bush or tree. Tall figures in the shadows of a forest turned out to be young trees, and I had to run from a hiding skeleton once or twice as well. I tried to remember where endermen were supposedly spotted at the most but came up short. Given that the books I'd read never mentioned anything akin to language, I was starting to doubt their knowledge anyway. I kept looking anyways, at this point, more out of spite that anything. 

My search came to a pause when a llama spit on my face. 

"Whoa there, easy girl!" Slob slid down my face and I sputtered. I could barely see, but I could have sworn that llama was looking at me with the smugest look I'd ever seen on an animal (and I'm pretty familiar with sheep, mind you). It had a companion, a brown llama who also felt strangely amused, and both were tied at the neck with a sturdy rope.The wandering trader the llamas were tied to came up to me and offered me a piece of cloth, which I gratefully took. He was an older guy, I noticed, the kind that immediately feels like a caretaker even when you’ve never met them before. Sasha might have called him a grandpa friend. "You okay there miss?"

I didn't feel okay. "I'm fine," I answered regardless. I didn't wanna ruin my first human interaction in weeks! "Though I definitely didn't expect llama spit in my hair today."

The trader gave a hearty laugh, which did make me feel better about myself. 

"Well, whatever is a young Builder like you doing so far out from any cities?" He asked, smiling. 

“I- well, nothing much, really, I’m just exploring around and stuff” I chuckled, feeling self conscious again. Would he think less of me because I wasn’t really doing anything productive with my life?

If he did, nothing in his face showed it. “And explorer, then! Now that’s a rare sight. Planning to write a book or something when you get back?”

I grimaced, thinking back to my life in the city, the one I’d been so desperate to get away from. Not to mention all my recent brushes with death... “If I get back, you mean.” I shrugged. “I don’t have any special plans, really. Just wanted to see what was out here.” 

I paused for a second. What if... well, the chances of me seeing this guy again were slim, so I didn’t have much to loose...

“Though...” I chuckled, fidgeting like crazy already, “you wouldn’t happen to have seen any Endermen around here? Any that were... I dunno, acting a little weird maybe?”

The trader paused for a second, before letting a sigh through his nose and biting his lip, seemingly in thought. “Well, I did see one on top of a tree last night.” I lit up. This had to be the one I was looking for! What kind of enderman climbs trees, after all? “Strangest thing I ever seen, and gave me quite the fright, too. Only one I’ve seen this week.” He stopped for a moment, looking down. After a few seconds, he smiled and said. “What for? I might be able to find you somewhere so buy enderpearls far easier than trying to go enderman-hunting, little miss.”

The prospect of enderman hunting had already seemed like something completely out of my reach. Now though, after the whole ordeal I’d gone through, the idea seemed almost... wrong. 

“No, I...” I grimaced. How was I supposed to explain this? “I came across an Enderman recently. To be honest, I should be dead right now.” 

The trader furrowed his brows, looking concerned. 

“Is that so? What happened?”

I swallowed. “I- well, you’re definitely not gonna believe this, I mean I definitely wouldn’t believe myself! But, umm the thing is...” My hands started sweating and I could tell the guy was starting to get impatient. “So I was in a cave, right? Mining. And then- well and enderman showed up, and I- like an absolute idiot looked right at them!” The trader was looking more worried every second, but now I couldn’t have shut up if I tried. “And they had me completely cornered- I didn’t even had my sword near and they were just about to kill me and then...”

I paused. Should I tell him about... the word? Noise? The fact that I had something akin to a conversation with a monster?

Probably not. 

"It just... disappeared." The trader's worried expression shifted. His brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed, and he looked confused, if not a bit disbelieving. I laughed in an effort to lighten the mood. "I mean- for some reason they decided to just... teleport away! Wierd, right?" 

"Pretty... unbelievable, I'd say." the trader answered carefully. "And you're looking for this enderman... again?"

I slumped my shoulders. "I- I just want some answers. I mean, i have no idea why they did that and-" I swallowed. "Frankly I don't really know what I'm trying to achieve here it was a bit-" 

"Well that's an interesting reaction." The trader smiled, though it looked a little strained. "Maybe you should be looking around in the middle of the night." He laughed, but the reason why flew completely over my head. It was true that I wasn't having all that much luck during daytime, and this man had seen a strange behaving enderman out during night time... "It's not like endermen are known for sunbathing!" 

I thought about it for a couple of seconds. There was probably a reason for endermen only coming out at night, if it wasn't because they would physically burn. I thought about how cave spiders have more sensitive eyes, with being used to living in the dark, and didn't enjoy the outside much because of it. Were endermen somehow similar? I hadn't considered that just because an enderman could be outside during the day, it didn't mean they would want too. 

Still, I didn't feel like staying out in the night ever again... tough maybe I didn't need to. A simple window in my bunkers would allow me to look withing the safety of their walls...

"You might be right..." I mumbled to the trader. Their expression strained again, but I was too deep in thought to really notice. "I should probably stay up a little later then, if i want to find them." I smiled back at him, before turning around and running to the beach in my quest to find a good vantage point to stay that night. I could barely hear the trader tellin me to wait, but I didn't quite catch what he said after. 

I was going to find that Enderman, darn it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and as always, I deeply appreciate any and all comments, kudos and bookmarks! I don't have all that much to say about this chapter, except that this wandering trader is going to be abused as a plot device later on. 
> 
> Up Next: Psy ventures out at night. For some reason, aiming seems more difficult up close.


	7. Monster Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psy's patience runs out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Welcome back to the fic! After the break last chapter were getting back into action baby! Hopefully you all enjoy this!

The search didn't get much better after that. I still had reservations about going out at night, so I just spent a couple of hours looking outside through a hole on my roof before getting too sleepy to stay put. I considered the possibility of them realizing I was around and actively avoiding me, but I shook the thought away. It might be true, but it wasn't going to stop me. 

In the span of another full week, I did little more than look at the stars. I supposed it wasn't all that terrible, I managed to entertain myself with stories derived from the constellations. Were they real constellations? Probably not. I was basically just making stuff up as I went. Occasionally a zombie would pass nearby, or I would have to duck away from an arrow, but over time, and from the safety of my bunker, the nigh seemed to lose its edge. Sure, I still didn't want to be anywhere _near_ a creeper or anything, but more than once I considered taking my sword and looking around a bit.

And that was the thing: my Enderman buddy flat out refused to show up. Finding an Enderman is already a rare occurrence, in comparison to other monsters at least, but I didn't see a single one, let alone the one I was looking for. I still held onto the promising statement of the wandering trader, but each night that passed I got a little more impatient. 

One night, after getting my hopes up when I saw something black only to discover it was a measly spider, I decided I was done waiting. 

I grabbed my sword, my bow, and my arrows, and before I left I shot one at the spider that had crushed my expectations. I may or may not have done a little victory dance when I hit it square in the eye. It scampered off into the forest behind it in that creepy little way only spiders are capable of. With that shot of vigor and bravery, I ran into the night. Well, for about three seconds, before I slowed down and realized I really didn't want to go that far away from my shelter. 

The night was surprisingly quiet. I couldn't see any monsters at all in the distance, which both relaxed and annoyed me. It didn't look like I was going to get eaten alive that night, but my chances of finding the Enderman were also pretty slim. I dragged my sword behind me, making a small canal with its blade. This... wasn't as terrible as I remembered. The cold night wind almost seemed to carry my steps, and in the distance, the moon reflected on the ocean, a million stars along with it. I smiled before I spun around in another effort to spot the one monster I was actively looking for. 

"Hey, Enderman!" I shouted impulsively, "If you're around here, I have a lot of questions!" 

I heard a noise behind me. It wasn't an Enderman. 

The spider from before had, apparently, decided to come back for revenge. I gagged. The arrow shot had seemed _pretty_ cool from a distance, but now the spider had a bleeding eye slightly out of its socket, threatening to spill out in a mass of disgusting flesh. The blood trickled down its face and dripped onto the undeserving grass. 

"Uh... that wasn't about you," I mumbled before the spider jumped straight at my face. 

I dodged- barely, and had to yank a strand of my hair from one of its spindly legs before I rolled just slightly out of its reach. I could already feel myself hyperventilating, but it was _just one spider_ , I told myself. One spider to which I had already done a considerable amount of damage. I could totally take it! 

I crouched to avoid another crazed jump on the part of the arachnid. It didn't seem like having one useless eye was affecting its aim much. With my best attempt at a battle cry, I lifted my sword to bash the spider with it. Maybe because I was shaking uncontrollably, or because I've always been trash at swordsmanship and don't know why I expected that to magically change, it got lodged in the ground just to the side of the spider and I had to abandon it in favor of dodging it again. 

Well, that was just dandy. I panicked. The spider now stood between me and my weapon, so I had no chance of ever getting it back. I drew my bow but immediately faltered. Aiming felt... a lot more difficult from this close-up. I tried shooting one and missed it by a landslide. Desperately, I tried to run backward, keeping my eyes on the spider and trying to put as much distance between us as physically possible. It lunged, and just as it landed it did so again, and I was entirely sure I was done for, my face about to become a spider's dinner. 

In less than a second, a flash of black and purple overtook my vision. The spider had been intercepted in its path by a powerful figure, their claws digging into its neck. The unfortunate monster wriggled, all eight of its legs squirming and kicking in a desperate attempt to get free. After a second, I heard it's exoskeleton crack under the pressure, flinching at the sound. The spider became limp in the Enderman's grasp. 

Before I had a chance to process what had happened, my savior spoke. 

"I spared your stupid life-" He said, his voice deep and distorted, and he turned around to face me, almost throwing the spider's corpse in my face, "and this- this is the kind of thing you do with it?!" 

My mind went completely blank for a moment. The Enderman continued to stare at me disapprovingly, almost scowling. Part of my mind wanted to take off running for dear life, but another recognized his voice. 

I had tried to deny that specific part of my memory, but here it was, staring at me with pretty mad purple eyes. 

"It's- It's you! Finally!" I blurted out, standing up straighter to get closer to his eye level, though he still towered over me. "You- Holy nether you can actually talk." 

The Enderman cocked his head before his eyes widened in realization. "You've been looking for me?!" 

"I- well-" I stumbled, feeling my cheeks warm up. Yes, it was stupid to try to look for a monster that almost killed me, but he didn't have to say it like that! "What was I supposed to do?! I am literally a dead woman walking and I have a lot of questions!" 

"You would put yourself in mortal danger to find someone who nearly killed you?!" The Enderman spit out scornfully. He threw the spider carcass to the side and mumbled: " _Ory wu zrc fcpuav W saelxv'z gwll uesr i uzefwx wxwaz?!_ " 

He sighed, looking at me bitterly, but without any aggression behind it. "Just... take better care of yourself, _please_ , sparing your life brought me far too much trouble for you to end up dying to something as stupid as a spider." 

With an air of finality, the Enderman turned around and started to walk away. I was left dumbfounded, the questions in my head multiplying by the minute. Sparing me had... hurt him somehow?

He was walking away. He was walking away and I still didn't know anything! I couldn't let him get away! Not this easy!

"Wait!" I shouted. The Enderman showed no signs of stopping, and I was starting to get desperate. "You still haven't answered anything!" He didn't seem to hear me. "I'm just going to keep looking for you!" 

He stopped. I smiled shakily, holding onto my small victory. "I'm just gonna keep looking for you unless you give me some answers, okay? So- so if you really want me to not die in a stupid way you're not gonna go away like that!" 

The Enderman turned back to me, holding his head like I was a particularly persistent headache. 

"You've already uprooted my entire life." He said miserably, his shoulders dropping in defeat. "Can't you just forget that I ever existed and move on with your life?" 

I was taken aback by the emotion in his eyes. Still, I held my ground. 

"I can't forget a near-death experience, no matter how much I _want_ to. I can't forget something that uproots my entire frame of thought!" I pleaded. "Please, just- I just want to _understand_." 

He sighed again. " _Nyvxc_." He said, and by his tone, I could understand he was swearing. He looked at me like I was a particularly hard match problem, a redstone system that refused to work the way it should have. I stared back, trying to look like I wasn't second-guessing myself with every second, trying not to look like I wasn't growing more and more afraid that he would lunge towards me and finish the job. 

"Fine."

I blinked. It had... worked? My stupid bluff had actually worked! I opened my mouth before closing it again, realizing I had no clue where to start. In an effort to buy time to think, I started walking closer to him. 

I'd gotten about halfway when we both heard the chime of teleportation. 

He straightened, his eyes widening and he started frantically looking around for the source. His panic was evident and very contagious. What could possibly scare the being that had finished a spider like _that_?! I ran in an attempt to grab my sword, before he stopped me, a gentle clawed hand blocking my path. 

"I can't talk now." he swallowed. "I have to go. You... um... do you know the oak tree that's at the top of that hill?" He pointed towards the hill in question. While I hadn't gone up that way yet, I could see it was mostly populated by birches. An oak tree would be easy to spot. So I nodded anyway. "Good," he let out a breath. "Meet me there tomorrow at noon and I'll explain, okay? And _please,_ don't stay out at night." 

After he said that, he teleported away himself, leaving me utterly alone in the middle of the night. With the threat of another Enderman that probably wouldn't be as merciful, I didn't waste time in getting back to my bunker. 

Back in the safety of my bed, I finally had the time to process all that had just happened. 

I had almost died to a spider. A spider! And then, the Enderman that had spared me before had saved my life once again. I shuddered at the thought of the spider's carcass cracking under his grip. Just how strong was he? He had put himself in some sort of danger by sparing me. Why did he care? What had made him take that choice? 

At the very least, I had to trust my questions would be answered soon. Frankly, I don't know how I managed to fall asleep at all that night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY BOY IS HERE! You guys have no idea- I don't know if i took too long to take get to this point or if its way to soon. Still, he talks! Also, there's a little detail I decided on with a friend recently, and im starting to implement it this chapter. I wonder how long its gonna take for you to figure it out? 
> 
> As always, I'm really eager to hear some feedback! 
> 
> Next up: Both parties are too polite to not show up, despite the foul weather.


	8. Hot Topic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psy meets up with her mysterious savior. She screams at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man i cannot believe I stayed up late just to finish this chapter on sunday despite me posting on tuesdays and being always one chapter ahead. I just wanna hear my boy talk okay?
> 
> Also at this point im barely editing the chapters to be able to continue my silly achievement/advancement naming scheme. I promise it's gonna be more important when we get to like act 2 of this thing.  
> Anyways, enjoy the chapter!

I woke up to the soft pitter-patter of rain. 

Taking a deep breath, I stretched, feeling as though I hadn't slept at all. 

Oh, right. I hadn't slept at all. How was I supposed to sleep after almost dying to a spider, having an enderman save my life, and then agree to answer all my questions the next day?

I bolted up from the bed. 

"WHAT TIME IS IT?!"

I had to meet with him today! I scrambled to free myself from the covers, fallen flat on my face, before looking around through all m belongings. Did I have time to pack up for the day? How much had I slept in? Had I slept in at all? I dusted myself off and headed for the door, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of the sun's position in the sky. 

All the while, I couldn't help but think about the fact that I had no idea what I was going to do once I met him. My fingers lingered by the doorknob and I smiled sadly. This was my first time planning to meet with anyone since kindergarten, wasn't it? Man, was I pathetic. 

I opened the door and yelped at the sudden drop of water on my face. Right, rain. I closed the door, using my sleeves to dry my face as best as I could manage. There went all my chances of finding out the time... Not to mention, meeting under a tree when it was pouring outside promised to be very uncomfortable...

Hold on a minute. The gears in my brain suddenly sprung into motion before hitting an abrupt stop. 

Weren't... weren't Endermen hurt by water?

I felt my stomach drop. Surely... surely he wouldn't have gone out in the rain then? Had the weather trumped my only chance at getting answers? 

Then again... I had basically threatened to kill myself if I didn't get them. Had he taken that to heart? Did he care about me enough to risk getting hurt because of that? No, there was no way. The guy had almost killed me, even if he'd spared me and saved my life again afterward. I was... probably just a monster to him, the same way Endermen are monsters to us. Who values the life of a monster? 

And still, the fact that the only reason I was alive was because of him tugged at my mind. Why had he done it? What made me matter to him at all? Why had he saved me again when I had already ruined his life or something? He seemed kind, regardless. What if he went solely to be polite? I couldn't let myself possibly leave him in the rain like that! Especially not when it could quite possibly hurt him!

I looked around. Did I have anything I could use to shield him from the rain? I could make him a hat... but that would take me far too long, considering I was most likely already running late. Not to mention, any clothes I already had would most likely not fit him well enough to offer any sort of protection. The only garment I could find that might fit someone a full meter taller than me was a discarded, blue scarf. I remembered having packed it for the chance I ended up in a snow biome. I didn't see what it would do against a downpour, but I chose to bring it with me regardless. Bringing a gift when meeting with someone was polite, wasn't it? 

\-------------------------------------

I walked uphill through the rain, wrapping myself around my backpack to keep it, and the scarf, dry. The water was dragging down thin strands of my hair, and little droplets clung to my eyelashes. I couldn't see two steps ahead of me, the rain coating my vision in white static. Or was that mist? Would mist be even worse for him? 

My climbing boots fell weak to the wet grass, making me slip more than a couple of times. At least the smell was a pleasant antidote to my toil. The freshness of the air encouraged me to keep going forward despite my constant falling. 

He was there. The absolute idiot was there, waiting for me under the oak tree just like he said he would. It was clear he hadn't been expecting the rain, either, given that he was just propped up on a single dirt block, somehow hugging his long legs to his chest to keep himself as dry as possible. The tree's branches were doing a decent job at sheltering him, but occasionally a leaf would let some drops fall and he'd hiss in pain. He was looking blankly ahead, brows (?) furrowed and muttering under his breath, but I could still see him shivering. 

"WHAT IN THE NETHER ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" I screamed in indignation.

I wonder what kind of impression I must have given him, suddenly arriving at our meeting spot with water running down my face, covered in mud and wet grass, clutching my backpack to my chest like my life depended on it, and screaming at him for doing something we had agreed on. I was way too worked up to care at the moment. 

The Endermen stared at me for a second, before knitting his brows together. 

"We agreed to meet here?" He asked, bewildered. 

"IT'S RAINING!" I said, my voice cracking a little. "Don't Endermen like- DIE in the rain?!" 

He opened his mouth, before closing it again. "I- well it does burn, but-" His voice died off, his eyes intently on mine as if he was studying every crinkle of my expression. I found myself slightly unnerved at the implication of staring back into his eyes. Wasn't that what had gotten me into this whole issue anyway? I huffed. I wasn't letting him get hurt like this anyway. I thought back to the contents of my bag and was reminded of the sheer amount of cobblestone I'd never gotten around to unpacking. That gave me an idea. 

I showed him the scarf I'd brought for him. "It's not much, but cover yourself a little," I mumbled before I got to work. It was a quick fix, and the air would still be mildly misty, which I really hoped wasn't hurting him, but a quick shelter should be enough to keep him out of the rain. He looked at me work silently for a couple of seconds before he spoke up again. 

"What are you doing?" 

I stopped, looking at him dumbfounded before my face fell in dismay.

"Am- am I really that bad at building that you can't tell I'm making you shelter?" I asked. 

"I-" he choked out, "well I'm not an idiot! Of course, I can tell!" I finished a rudimentary roof, checking the supporting wall to make sure it was sturdy. Noticing how dark it had become, and slightly unsettled at the fact that his eyes were glowing now, I looked for a torch, realizing I hadn't brought any. I didn't have any coal to make some, either. Guess making a furnace and burning some planks would do. The enderman flinched as I lit the fire, but was quick to redirect his attention towards me. 

"I guess I'm asking why you care." 

I blinked at him. "Why I- why I care? I literally owe you my life. Twice!" 

"Am I not a monster to you? A danger? Something you have to slay?" He almost interrupted, his voice growing agitated. I flinched, before opening my mouth. Before I could say anything, I realized I didn't know what to say. That's what he had been. Until a week ago, barely longer. Maybe even until yesterday. Still...

"Well, you talk." I shrugged. "Pretty sure monsters can't do that." 

We both fell into a heavy silence. 

He uncoiled a little, stretching his legs ever so slightly. I realized I maybe should have made the shelter a tad bigger. 

"So, you threatened to put yourself in danger yesterday if I didn't answer your questions." He reminded me with a pointed look. "So ask away." 

I bit my lip, sucking in a breath. Right, questions. All of them came bursting at the forefront of my mind, each one screaming for my attention. The longer I thought about it, the harder it became to decide.

"What- what's your name?" I blurted out, feeling slightly foolish. 

His shoulders dropped while his eyebrows rose. He looked as though I'd just told him I wanted to hug a creeper. I might as well have, honestly. With all the things I had to ask him...

"My- uh, it's Ä̵̧͇̞͕̩͎͍̱͖͉̑͒̄̿̇̑̈̕͝v̴̹͕̿̆̂̉͝e̶̗̖̅͠r̴̮̯͙͉̱̎̽̃͂̓y̶̨͉̙̋ͅ" if I was already having a hard time understanding him with his weird, distorted voice, then I was completely befuddled by the sound of his name. It barely sounded like a voice at all! It seemed my distress was pretty evident because he looked away sheepishly. I did my best to imitate him.

"A- Avery? I'm sorry that's probably not how-" He chuckled, or at least I thought he did. It sounded like what I imagined gurgling lava would sound like. 

"Yeah, Ä̵̧͇̞͕̩͎͍̱͖͉̑͒̄̿̇̑̈̕͝v̴̹͕̿̆̂̉͝e̶̗̖̅͠r̴̮̯͙͉̱̎̽̃͂̓y̶̨͉̙̋ͅ." 

I gulped. "Are- are you sure? I'm convinced I'm not pronouncing that right." I fumbled with my sleeves, trying to will my tongue to pronounce the name the way he had done. 

"Don't bother." He said. "I'm pretty sure humans don't have a reverberance chamber so you won't be able to make it sound the same no matter how hard you try." 

I slumped my shoulders, defeated. 

"Alright." 

"So did you make me come out in the rain just to you could ask my name?" He asked, and I tried to figure out whether he was joking or not. I couldn't make anything out. 

"Well, I do have some other questions," I mumbled. "I guess... how can you talk to me? Can... can all endermen speak?" 

He sighed. "That's easy. Yes, we can all talk, but we don't talk human or whatever it is you call your language. We call it... well, _cvxufcig_ , which I guess roughly translates to... endspeak?" He shrugged. " I honestly thought you knew, given that you apparently know how to say hello." 

I had to think about what he said for a couple of seconds.

"Hello... Hold on!" My eyes widened as my brain finally put the pieces together. "Rclla! That means hello?" I had looked at an enderman that was about to kill me and I'd said hello! I prayed the earth would swallow me whole that second. Hello! That was so stupid!

Avery looked at me, his eyes wide in complete bewilderment. "You didn't know?! Infinite void, you didn't know!" He put his hand to his forehead and muttered something I couldn't understand, be it because it was endspeak or because his voice became even harder to make out when he whispered, I couldn't really tell. 

I was all too eager to change the subject, so I latched onto the first question that sprung up: "Okay, but then why can you speak Builder?" 

He looked back at me, squinting his eyes. "That's what you call it? Just the name of your species?" 

I shrugged.

"We call the red conductor dust redstone, so I think we were collectively never good with names." He looked at me like he was personally offended by this. I shrunk a little under his gaze. "You still haven't answered the question." 

He shrugged in return. "You humans have interesting systems. I spent a lot of time watching villagers trade and ended up teaching myself the language. I could never figure out the other language they speak, the one with the hums and stuff, however." 

"Oh yeah, hummish is an absolute nightmare. It's entirely tone based." I conceded. And before I could think better of it, I splurted out: "So you're a nerd."

He frowned at me. "I might have some issues understanding the exacts of your culture, but I'm pretty sure you just insulted me." 

My blood immediately ran cold. "I didn't mean it like that!" I scrambled to explain, "I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm the biggest nerd there is, and like, wanting to learn stuff isn't bad! I mean the problem comes when you also have trash social skills and you don't seem like someone who would have an issue with... any... of that. I... I'm sorry, I said too much, didn't I?" I buried my head in my hands, groaning. I was talking to an enderman and still managing to embarrass myself, huh? 

He looked at me like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do.

"It's... fine, I guess?" He sighed. "By the plain definition of the word, at least as I understand it, I am a nerd. I'm guessing it's common for 'nerds' to not have great social skills, thus the word being used as an insult?" 

I slumped. "I- yeah, pretty much." 

"Interesting." He hummed like he had just solved a particularly difficult puzzle. "Anyways, do you have anything else you want to ask me?" 

I looked at him, furrowing my brows. "Why... Why did you spare me? And why does that put you in trouble? Why would you save my life if it ruined yours or something?" 

He paused. "I- well..." He sighed, looking at the ceiling. "It's... hard to explain." 

The look of despair in his eyes didn't go unnoticed by me, however. I could easily assume that what he meant was closer to 'i don't wanna talk about it'. 

"You.. don't have to give me all the details if you don't want to," I mumbled, keeping my head down but occasionally glancing up to see his reactions. He slowly turned to look at me, brows furrowing. I swallowed. "I... I wouldn't wanna make you uncomfortable. I just... I want to understand it a little better." 

He huffed again like he was bracing himself for a painful blow. "...thanks." he mumbled, "I was supposed to kill you. And then you spoke and I realized I couldn't. I didn't have the guts to kill." 

I shuffled a bit, averting his eyes. "Can... can I ask why? Why you had to kill me?" 

"You're a builder." He hesitated for a bit before he continued. "Endermen are supposed to kill any builder we see. And if we refuse-" He moved his finger across his throat, the implication clear. I felt sick. 

"They're... they're gonna kill you?!" My treacherous mind provided 'because of me?'. I don't think I could have lived with myself if that happened...

He just shrugged. "Only if they find me. And they aren't going to try too hard. It's not like anyone knows yet. And they won't if they don't get close enough." 

"How... how would they know?" 

He pointed to his purple eyes. "Some sort of curse, I think. I don't think it's biological, but if we see any being deemed an enemy, they shine in the dark. And it only stops when you kill them. So we can get away with ignoring anyone if they don't look us in the eyes, but..." 

"But I was an idiot and looked straight at you." I finished. He cringed a little. 

"Put bluntly, yes." 

I looked at my hands. My own stupidity, my own lack of survival skills had put someone in danger. I looked at Avery. I owed my life to him! Was there nothing I could do to make sure the rest of his kind didn't get to him? 

I thought about it for a minute, guilt weighing heavily on my shoulders. 

"What... what if you came with me?" I almost whispered. 

Avery blinked at me a couple of times. "I'm sorry?" 

"Travel with me. Get food and fuel during the day, since endermen don't tend to go out in the day, I definitely know _that_. And then stay in a bunker all night where no one would see you." I kept talking, surprising myself with how much sense I was actually making. "If any of your kind sees us, we can pretend we're already fighting each other, and they wouldn't worry about your eyes, and I'm not planning to run into any humans anyways." I shrugged. "I just... I can't leave you to just fend for yourself, not with this whole deal being my fault anyway." 

He stared at me for a couple of seconds. 

"That... that actually seems like a good idea." He looked at me reluctantly, and I could do nothing but sit there, awaiting what I thought would be inevitable rejection.

"Alright. I'll take you up on that." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The struggle here to give out a little exposition but still show that Avery isn't going to tell his entire life story to someone he doesn't trust ughhh  
> Please tear into me with the critique im illogically torn between loving and hating this chapter. 
> 
> Next up: Avery discovers the joy of HONEY. I swear im trying to write a platonic relationship here.


	9. Bee our Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psy and Avery adjust to their new dynamic as travel companions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Welcome back! It seems I have a habit of jumping from a heavy chapter to a calm one in a heartbeat. I wonder if it works like a break or if it's just giving you all emotional whiplash...

I must admit, the first time I woke up to see an Enderman with a blue scarf curiously poking around my shelter I almost had a heart attack. 

Starting to travel with Avery certainly was a jarring change in my routine. It took him a good couple of days to adjust to a diurnal sleeping schedule, and he would often have to cover his far more sensitive eyes whenever we went out. The sound of his grumbling slowly became almost background noise the first couple of days. I often tried to find ways to make him more comfortable. He would always shrug it off and tell me it didn't really matter. 

He was a heavy sleeper, I noticed after I found myself glaring at his sleeping form while I suffered at the hands of zombie groans more than once. Still, he would always be awake before me, busying himself with reorganizing the contents of my backpack over and over again. I found out that while he had picked up Builder over time, he had no idea how to read it, so the couple of books I had brought with me didn't do him much good. He refused to go outside without me. I don't think I would have either if I'd been in his place. 

We started doing my overall tasks together. I had to teach him how to properly hold an ax, and I noticed he took a lot longer than I did when chopping down a tree, though it was probably just a Builder thing. He was fantastic at organizing, and didn't even stumble at hard math. Trying to calculate anything in front of him just ended with me embarrassing myself. I tried to teach him how to use the oven but ended up taking up those duties as often as I could. He would insist he was fine with making coal from time to time, but whenever he thought I wasn't looking it was painfully obvious that he was really nervous when using it. I wondered if he was sensitive to heat as well as light. He had a lot less trouble than me with cleaning animals (and I would be lying if I said he didn't make me feel incredibly self-conscious about my own weak stomach,) but he looked at me like I was crazy when I first game him a steak to cook. 

"You want me to put food in the fire." He said, holding the piece of meat I had just stopped him from putting in his mouth raw. 

"I mean- not on the fire, near the fire. So it cooks!" He furrowed his nonexistent eyebrows, looking at me and then at the steak like he was trying to remember something he heard long ago. I couldn't help but smile. "Have... Have you never had cooked meat before?" 

"I... no. I quite honestly thought the "cooked" the villagers talked about was a different variant of the animal, like a mooshroom." He reluctantly placed the steak on the hot stone of the oven and flinched slightly when it started to sizzle. 

I, on the other hand, let out a snort before I managed to cover my mouth and stifle my laughing fit. He turned to me, looking offended. 

"What?" He asked me, and I had to take a few deep breaths before I answered. 

"Nothing, nothing! It's an honest mistake!" I smiled. I probably would have believed something much dumber. It was pretty obvious that Avery was the smarter one in the room. He just hadn't had the chance to sit in a classroom and have everything spoonfed to him. 

He looked at me with the most deadpan look I'd ever seen in a living being, before turning his attention back to the cooking meat. "So... why would you "cook" food?" 

I sat down next to him, trying not to sound condescending. "It makes it tastier! And it also prevents food poisoning sometimes." 

I ended up having to explain food poisoning to him. Apparently, Endermen can eat raw chicken and be entirely fine! I couldn't help but laugh at the face he made when he tried the finished meat. It was pure childlike wonder. 

Our conversations basically revolved around asking each other questions. I found out that Endermen mostly eat the only fruit that grows in their homeland, called chorus fruit. I told him about the way libraries worked, and about redstone engineering. Our mutual curiosity didn't save us from heavy silences, though. If I tried to ask more about the Endermen's mysterious homeland, he would become quiet and refuse to look at me at all. It was clear there were some things he didn't trust me with. I couldn't blame him, though. If he skirted too close to asking about my social life, I changed the topic as fast as I could. 

I told him a little about my plans or my lack thereof. He looked at me skeptically when I said all I wanted to do was explore. He asked I just walking around wouldn't become monotonous after a while. I laughed, biting my lip, trying my best to ignore the doubts that were clinging to the back of my brain like a web of dark tar. He looked at me strangely when I dismissed the thought. We both fell quiet after that. 

Soon we moved away from the beach, as I couldn't imagine being near such a large body of water would be comforting to someone who was burned by it. I shuddered at the thought of having to sleep next to a sea of lava every night. We came to a beautiful forest, the shadows of the many branches looking as though they were very gentle on Avery's vision. The forest floor was littered with flowers, from dainty poppies to giant sunflowers. Avery had a laughing fit when he saw me sneeze after inhaling the pollen from a cornflower. It was really embarrassing to hear someone compare my repetitive short sneezing to the sound of a creeper, to be honest. Regardless, a bit of the annoying powder then got caught in his throat, and I got to look smugly back at him when he had a coughing fit of his own. 

After setting camp a couple of times in the forest, we found a beehive. Or, well, Avery found a beehive, I wouldn't have seen it at all, and then he growled at the bees like an angry wolf. 

"What are you doing?" I asked him, not managing to stop my smile at the ridiculousness of the situation. 

He looked at me, his head dropping to the side. "How do you mean? How else am I supposed to get those annoying things to leave us alone?"

I couldn't have wiped the smile off my face then, looking at him with a guilty expression. "Avery... bees will just leave you alone as long as you don't hit them or steal their honey."

Avery straightened, before looking back at the insects and scowling. " _Tatum yae hell ah fwmlwv uvaz uav ah zrc jawx_ " I laughed, despite not understanding a word he'd said. I followed one of the bees with my gaze before I looked at him and smirked.

"What flower do you think that one will go for?" I asked, pointing at it. He looked at me quizzically before shrugging and looking at all the foliage around us. 

"Let's say... that white one." He'd picked a rather tall Lilly of the Valley. 

"Alright, I say it's gonna go for a poppy," I replied, pointing at the red flower. "And if you guess right I'll get us some honey from the comb."

"Wait, didn't you say they get angry if you do that?" He looked at me, more confused by the second. 

I shrugged. "I think I can remember how to do it properly. For some reason they don't if you put a campfire under it, I think." I really hoped I was right. After all, the bee had just approached the lily, and I didn't want to get stung that day. 

I sighed as the bee took its bounty back to the comb. "I guess I have to show you now, huh." I got out my crafting table and got to work, crafting a campfire and a pair of shears since I didn't have any glass I could use for a bottle. Avery looked carefully as I did so, and watched me closely as I placed the campfire straight under the colony, though he kept his distance. 

"It's absolutely incredible how much you builders can make in such a short time," he told me. I had to stop at the remark. Sure, I knew builders were a lot better at making things than other species, but I had taken so long making sure those shears were symmetrical, and I'd still completely butchered them. My skill wasn't anything special, at least, certainly nothing _I'd_ consider incredible. I just shrugged. 

"It wasn't all that good of a job"

Carefully, I took the time to remove a little of the comb with my shears. As soon as I cut into it, the rich, golden honey oozed out of it, dripping to the grass in slow, rhythmic drops. The filtered sunlight reflected off of it, making it look even more delicious. My stomach growled. I looked around, relieved to see the bees didn't seem to notice me. My attention went back to the liquid gold as I carefully snipped again. The honey got caught between the blades of my shears, stretching like golden cobwebs. It continued to overflow from the hexagonal crevices of the wax, and I took a little and plopped it into my mouth. The sweet taste was heavenly! I remembered how much I missed cake... without having had the chance to make sugar, I hadn't had dessert in months! 

I walked back to Avery with two slices of honeycomb in hand and gave him one of them. He looked at my hand absolutely bewildered. Slowly and hesitantly, he reached out to it and immediately cringed, passing it from hand to hand and trying to get the sticky substance off his hands.

"Have you... never tried honey?" I asked as innocently as I could. He looked at me with the same bewildered look that was becoming such a permanence until he saw me take a bite out of my own slice. 

"Wait- you eat that stuff?!" He almost shouted at me. I laughed. 

"Youb shoulbd-" I swallowed. "You should just try it." 

Slowly, he lifted the honey to his mouth- and for the first time I noticed he really didn't have lips, instead, his skin transitioned seamlessly into fangs. It was slightly unnerving. He took a small bite and immediately straightened, eyes wide. I completely lost it, doubling over in laughter, but for once he didn't even look at me, too engrossed in his newly discovered treat. 

He stopped eating for a moment to look at me, still wide-eyed. "This thing-" he said, "how is it sweeter than a million Chorus fruits?!" 

"That's the power of sugar for you!" I laughed. "I'm gonna get some more. You have got to try cake!" 

I discovered he was really, really bad at hiding his excitement. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR IM TRYING MY BEST TO MAKE THEM BE 100% PLATONIC BUT IVE READ SO MUCH FLUFF THIS IS LITERALLY JUST FLUFF-
> 
> So uh, if you think I could do something to fix that or if you feel like complaining about the emotional whiplash I mentioned at the beginning, the comment section is right there and i wanna hear from people okay
> 
> Next up: Remember how Psy has self-esteem issues? Yeahhh


	10. The Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honesty is the best policy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO I ALMOST FORGOT TO POST THIS  
> So the title is referencing the cake achievement in Minecraft but it was such a good title I had to do something with it and.. yeah..  
> Enjoy

I found myself digging around the far corners of my backpack, with Avery behind me, just short of screaming at me how little sense the storing capabilities of it made. That had been one of the questions I hadn't managed to answer for him- after all, it wasn't something that I'd ever _really_ questioned. It was strange to hear him freak out at least once a week at the fact that I could somehow fit an entire bed in there. Still, it wasn't a bed I was looking for.

It was food.

Ever since I had him try _cooked meat_ for the first time, I had made it my unspoken mission to have him try as many delicacies as I could manage. I had given him bread, mutton, baked potatoes, and beetroot soup. I'd also gotten a bit creative, making caramel apples with the honey we got.

He'd been hesitant to many of the things I'd offered him, at first. One time, as I saw him cringe away from the bowl of mushroom stew I'd shoved in his face, I couldn't help but laugh a little.

"What, are you scared? I'm not gonna poison you, you know." I joked. It really was a wonder how comfortable I'd gotten around this literal monster.

He seemed to tense at my words, immediately taking the bowl from my hands and eating.

"Of course not!" He argued between spoonfuls, "Fear is completely stupid. Though I don't know why I'm telling it to you." He took another bite. "You're most likely not scared of anything."

That had taken me by surprise. Avery thought I was fearless, apparently. I could only meekly agree while poking at my own stew, lost in thought. I had always felt afraid, of everything. Somehow, I had managed to trick somebody into thinking I was brave. I looked back up at him. It... was nice, actually, for someone to tell me I wasn't afraid of anything, even if it was a blatant lie.

I didn't want to disappoint him.

I came back to the present, sighing as I set my backpack down, still empty-handed.

In my enthusiasm for getting this estranged Enderman to try all the foods imaginable, I had forgotten that my rations were originally for one averagely sized person. And it turns out, the bigger you are, the more you need to eat!

Point is-

"I think we're out of food," I said. "Unless you feel like eating honey straight."

He cringed. He'd gotten sick from eating so much sugar the day after we found the comb.

"What should we do about it, then?" He asked, looking at me intently.

I was taken aback by the question and took a minute to consider my options. The quickest route was probably just to go hunting, but I didn't feel like embarrassing myself in front of him. Not to mention, I still wanted him to try different foods, and we'd already tried all the meat in existence. I thought about it another way. What kind of food _did_ I want him to try?

An old promise sprung into my head.

"We should make a cake," I answered. He looked at me quizzically, prompting me to explain. "We should grow some wheat, that way I can make us fresh bread as well. Then we just need some milk and some eggs and we can have our cake and eat it too!"

"Oh!" He said, and his eyes widened. "Isn't cake the fluffy bread that's covered in something white and decorated strangely?"

"Yeah, that's it." I smiled. Avery's knowledge of everyday stuff was always a gamble. He had no idea you cooked meat or ate honey, but could tell me the entire process of making bread and the average price for 15 arrows. And there were some things, like cake, apparently, that he kinda knew about, but came to me to confirm for him. I guessed it highly depended on what he was around to watch when he was lowkey stalking villages.

He hummed, satisfied, before getting up from the bed I'd made him. "Well then, we should start farming!"

* * *

"Alright, and then you plant the seeds about 20 centimeters away from each other, so you get... uh..."

"25 seeds a cube?"

It took a second for my own calculations to catch up and confirm that he was absolutely right.

"Uh, yeah. Exactly." I answered sheepishly. He'd caught on to farming really quickly, though he had been bewildered at my ability to find the proper seeds in the middle of the foliage. Apart from your regular wheat seeds I'd also gotten lucky and found a few watermelon and beetroot seeds. Avery gave me a strained smile when I told him what they were. I could tell he hadn't been a fan of my beetroot soup, but he was being far too nice for his own good and refused to tell me. I didn't get very offended, beetroot was a divisive food.

He smiled and made good use of his claws to bury the seeds perfectly. It seemed he enjoyed the activity, too, despite the proximity to water. Considering the first time I'd met him, he was standing under the rain, it was safe to assume he wasn't at all scared of the stuff, even though it would burn him if he accidentally touched it.

And he thought _I_ was fearless.

He tore me away from my thoughts by getting up and turning towards me.

"And now... I suppose it's just a matter of waiting for it to grow?"

I stood up as well, silently admiring his work. That would have gotten him perfect marks at school. "Yup. Though we could make it go faster if we had some bonemeal..."

"...we should just get our eggs while we wait."

I silently wondered if he had been making a jab at my inability to fight any sort of monster, let alone kill the skeletons I'd need to make bonemeal at all.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." I agreed, avoiding his eyes.

We found a chicken a while later, nesting between a couple of dandelions.

I immediately startled it, having it peck angrily at my ankles.

While I was curled up in the tall grass, enduring the tiny but incredibly painful attacks of the chicken, I barely managed to catch a glimpse of Avery.

He was barely visible, just a shadow amongst the trees. His form was continuously cut by the tall blades of grass, and I'm sure that, had his eyes not been glowing, I would have completely lost sight of him.

The way he walked was curious. He placed his heel before his toes (or whatever the front of the foot was called for an enderman), and he stepped like the grass was made of glass he was afraid of breaking. Each step was carefully considered, and I couldn't even hear the crunching of the grass under him. He didn't step on any branches, he didn't tumble and trip. In a moment, he had snatched the eggs out of the chicken's nest, his grip firm yet delicate enough not to crack them, and then I blinked and officially lost his position.

At least, until I heard a swoop right behind me.

My feathery attacker cowered and scurried back to her nest. Before she could notice anything was missing, Avery grabbed my hand and the world turned purple.

It was a strange experience, teleporting. It seemed to last forever, but at the same time it was less than a second, and my body felt like it was being thrown in every direction all at once. I only had the time to wonder how in the world one would control their destination like this, before we were back at our crop's side.

I felt something warm in on my nose. When I touched it, my fingers came out stained red.

Avery was looking at me, horrified.

"Psy? Psy why are you bleeding?!"

"Don't worry!" I shut him down. "It's just a nosebleed! I... I don't think humans are built for teleportation."

He made sure I was absolutely okay before we went out in search of milk. I tried to ignore the feeling of weakness and humiliation.

_Another thing Avery excelled at that I couldn't even handle..._

* * *

There was a cow, grazing at the top of the hill we'd just climbed, standing just over the edge of a cliff. I swallowed.

Avery was looking at me like that again. Like I was some sort of puzzle he just couldn't figure out. It was common enough that I'd gotten used to it, but it still made me incredibly nervous.

"How do you milk a cow, again?" He asked me.

"You, uh, you take a bucket and then you squeeze its udders until milk comes out," I said, gazing distractedly at the cliff. That looked... like a long, long drop.

"Are you okay?" Avery asked, his brows knitted together. "I can just-"

"NO!" I shouted, before turning red in embarrassment. I was being far too obvious, wasn't I? Avery thought I was fearless. What would he say if he knew I was too afraid to go near a cliff? No, I had to brave it. I'd been through worse before, right? The ravine came to mind. It did very little to calm my racing heart. "Don't worry about it! You've never done it before, I should show you anyways." I smiled, trying my best not to show it was completely fake.

I approached the cow, trying my best to imitate Avery's confident stride. I held out the bucket in front of me, and once I was close enough I placed my hand on the cow's back, trying to steady it so I could milk it properly.

Everything was supposed to be fine.

Instead, the cow bucked. Had I gripped its fur too tightly? Then I was definitely in for it now, because instead of letting myself be thrown aside like a normal person, I had gripped it tighter, being hoisted up and thrown around like a ragdoll. My vision was a blurry mess, colors melting together. My head was spinning, both metaphorically and physically, and I was hitting my arms, the cow, the ground-

In the middle of the confusing mess I'd found myself in, I barely heard Avery scream out.

I really was pathetic, huh? Messing up this badly just for some milk.

I couldn't give up, not in front of him.

I couldn't be afraid.

I didn't let go, mustering up all my strength to pull myself closer to the rampaging animal. My fingers grasped the short bristles, and I thought that _if I could just grab it by the ears-_

I didn't feel it happen. All I know is that the next second I was rolling through the grass, and up was down and down was up and everything was spinning way too fast for me to even comprehend what was happening and then I was falling. I was falling!

My arms reacted before my brain could catch up, fingers grasping desperately at the rough stone, trying again and again to find something to _grab onto, something to SURVIVE_ \- but I was still falling, and I had started kicking up against the air but I already knew I was going to _die splattered on the ground below_.

The moment stretched out into infinity but then I blinked, tears filling my vision and suddenly a strong, clawed hand grabbed me, abruptly stopping my fall.

"Psy!" I barely heard him, my mind still frazzled, and the only thing I could do was scream in his face:

"Pull me up, PULL ME UP PULL ME UP!"

Avery didn't hesitate, hoisting me back to the safety of solid ground fast enough that both of us ended up sitting on the grass. I was shaking violently, my eyes refusing to focus and all I could do was clutch the familiar fabric of his scarf and try to remember to breathe.

"Psy, what-"

"I'M SCARED!" I screamed, and I got a strange sense of deja vu, like I was back at my apartment clutching that letter, that same feeling of everything crumbling down except this time I couldn't hold the tears in. I wasn't _expecting_ this. I'd tried, I'd tried _so hard_ to save face, but my hands were bloodied and I was bruised and I was bawling my eyes out with the only being I'd considered a friend for _so long_ squeezing my shoulder comfortingly, "I'm- I'm just a useless spineless wimp who can't do anything right! I am _such_ a coward, I- why do you-"

Avery shook my shoulder, and I looked up at him. If I had to describe his expression, I'd probably say it was the kind of face you make when you accidentally break a window and are realizing how much you screwed up.

"It's because of what I said, wasn't it? Nyvxc." He swore and I noticed that we both remembered that conversation. HE took a deep breath before he found his words. "Look I- I'm an idiot, okay? It was stupid of me to think you were some sort of fearless maniac just because I saw you face off against beings you had no way of defeating a couple of times. Of course, you're afraid! I mean, who... who isn't?"

"You aren't." I blurted out, messily scrubbing my eyes before I could think any better of it.

"You... you think _I'm_ not afraid of anything?" He asked, confused. "What-"

"When I met you, you were literally standing under the rain, you know, the thing that kills you! I would have been terrified!" I protested.

He chuckled weakly. "Yeah, but I'm used to water. I-" He sighed, "you're scared of heights, aren't you?"

I nodded, just as defeated.

"And... and high walls. It makes no sense." I admitted. My reputation in his eyes was already destroyed, so why not go all in?

He sighed, one of those heavy sighs when you've got something to say but can't.

"It makes no sense that I freeze at the sight of fire." He admitted at the end. I looked up at him in disbelief. "I absolutely despise oven duty."

"Then why-"

He shrugged. "The same reason I told you fear was stupid." He waited a second before explaining. "I... I didn't want you to think I was a coward."

I smiled. "Looks like we're both cowards, then."

He smiled back. "Yeah." After he'd helped me back on my feet and made sure my hands were alright, he said. "I'll go get the milk."

That night we had the best cake I've ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST! MY DEAR FRIEND! Again, really hope my chapter vibes aren't giving anyone emotional whiplash. 
> 
> Next up: A swamp is a good place for things to hide.


	11. Take Aim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psy goes on a solo expedition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Welcome back to another chapter! Do you have any idea how many Minecraft books there are? Like... not gonna lie I really wanna read all of them.   
> It'll make sense soon enough. Go read the chapter now!

Avery was my friend. I could say that with certainty. What else could I consider him after traveling together for three weeks? After he'd saved my life multiple times despite it putting _him_ in danger? He hadn't been chased away for my lack of skills, my indecision, or my cowardice. And while a giant part of me felt like thanking him to infinity for that, for being patient enough to bear with my stupidity and being inexperienced enough to enjoy my cooking, another part of me felt like I was on the edge of a cliff.

It was clear there were some things he would rather not talk about. They mostly seemed to surround his past, and what life was like on the endermen's home dimension, fittingly named The End. I was afraid, but also unbelievably curious. Afraid that if I asked, if I pressured even in the slightest that the only proper friendship I'd had for a long time would shatter like glass. Afraid to drive him away, afraid of hurting him somehow. And curious about what had made him leave, _who_ had made him leave, why he was supposed to kill me when we first met and why his eyes were cursed in a way that made his failure obvious.

Despite the new, unspoken rule that we wouldn't lie about our feelings to impress the other, we skirted around the past quite carefully. That is, until I decided I would teach Avery how to read.

I'd taken out the five books I'd packed for the journey, and smiled, remembering the warm bookstore they'd come from. Avery didn't miss it. He'd been watching my expressions a lot more closely ever since the cliff incident.

"So..." he asked tentatively. "Where did you... uh..." He fell silent, his brows furrowing, "trade these from?"

"You mean buy?" The question caught me off guard, my immediate reaction being to offer the word he might have been looking for.

"Yes, that." He answered, and I fell silent for a bit. Once again my mind got split into opposing factions. One was determined to bury anything about my time in Archon and never talk about it again. The other... the other trusted Avery. I'd told him about my stupidest fear and he hadn't laughed. He'd seen how awful I was with a sword and he'd only ever been concerned. I had no reason to believe he would react any differently. Not to mention, this... this was a pleasant memory.

"Well..." I started. "I... I used to live in this big city. And about a ten-minute walk away from my apartment- my house," I added after seeing him frown at the word. It made sense that he'd never hear the word apartment before- from what little he'd told me, he'd picked up his Builder from small villages. "There was this really pretty bookstore. And when I say pretty, I _mean_ pretty. Like, wooden floors and a, uh, whatever a window on the ceiling is called that made everything look warm and cozy, and the owner, Sasha, always had a scented candle burning and it was always heavenly!" I glanced back at him. He hadn't looked away or shown any signs of disinterest. I took one of the books and absentmindedly started tracing the title.

"I went there a lot. I'd always had a hard time reading before, especially at school, but Sasha had some really good books there, and I... guess I fell in love with reading. I really didn't have much money at all, and I'm still surprised Sasha didn't kick me out when she found out I couldn't buy anything from her. She used to point me to books she thought I might enjoy, and she actually helped me sell all my stuff for enough money to get all the things I'd need to go out exploring. These five were the first and last books I ever got from her." I laughed.

"You two seem like close friends." He said.

"I..." I had to think about it for a while. Was Sasha a friend of mine? "We never really talked much. I mean, she was nice to me, I knew she had a lot of siblings and she knew I lived alone, but apart from that it was just exchanging greetings as I went into the store... maybe it was a little unfair of me to not consider her a friend." We fell into silence for a while, though I was a little too distracted to really noticed it.

"Anyways, didn't I say I would teach you to read?"

* * *

I don't think you'd find it hard to believe that before that day, I had never seen a swamp before in my life. Sure, It wasn't the most glamorous of places. The air was heavy and humid, and the closer I got the more my boots sank into the ground, but my little explorer heart was absolutely bounding at the prospect of a new environment. The smell of mud was prevalent, and I had a hard time deciding whether I liked it or not. My mind soon focused on the vines hanging from the trees. I wondered if those would support my weight.

"Avery!" I turned around excitedly, "Do you think I could-"

He was looking, or, more like glaring at the swamp-like, it had personally offended him. I also noticed that while I was already ankle-deep in the water, he'd stayed back where the ground was still entirely dry, standing in the shade of a tree that was only barely taller than him. It took a couple of seconds for the gears in my brain to finish turning.

"Oh my goodness you'd die in here."

"I wouldn't die-"

"Avery water literally burns you you would absolutely die." I cut him off, stepping away from the swamp and going back to where he was standing. "Let's just keep going another way."

He stood in silence for a couple of seconds. I looked back at the swamp, a little disappointed. But with Avery around, I'd have to make a few sacrifices...

"No, we're going through that swamp." He said, determined. I stared back at him like he'd grown a second head.

"Avery. Avery no."

"I can tell you wanna go explore it."

"I-" I couldn't really deny it, so I ended up just glaring at him. "It doesn't matter, I'm not letting you get hurt just because I wanna explore."

"Isn't exploring the entire reason you're traveling anyways? It would be unfair for you to not do that because I'm sticking with you-"

"Avery you can't control being burned by water, how is it unfair?"

At that point, the argument had devolved into a staring contest. I put all my might into showing I wouldn't budge, even though staring into his eyes made my head hurt after a little while. Eventually, he sighed.

"How about I wait here and you take today to explore that swamp to your heart's content." He said.

"And you're just gonna stay here the entire time? You'll get super bored!" I continued to argue. I couldn't remember having discussed this long before.

"I can practice reading." He shrugged, "I do really want to read "The rise of the Arch-Illager", and with the speed I'm able to read at currently it should keep me busy for the rest of the day."

I couldn't really argue with that. If there wasn't the enticing prospect of exploring a new biome right behind me, an entire day of reading didn't sound like a bad idea.

"Are... are you sure?" I asked anyways.

"Yes, I'm sure." He replied calmly. "Maybe you should take the time to practice your shooting too."

"Huh?" I asked, taken a bit aback.

"It's the weapon you use best. If I'm going to practice reading, then it's only fair you practice something too, don't you think?"

I chuckled. As if this entire argument had a semblance of fairness. "Sure."

After retrieving my bow and arrows from my backpack and entrusting it to Avery, who excitedly dug into it for the novel he'd mentioned, I started making my way towards the swamp. Each step I took was harder than the previous one, with my legs slowly sinking into the mud like it was quicksand. Eventually, I found myself wading through the water, having to fight the mud below me with every step. It was a weird sensation, the lack of weight my body had in water combined with the gripping forces of mud and vines. The gentle light that filtered itself between the branches tinted the entire expanse a dark, muted green, and while the smell of mud was the most prevalent, I could still detect undertones of wood and leaves. Each time I took a step, the ripple of the water melded with the chirps of unseen birds and the ruffle of the vines being swayed by the wind, creating a catching melody. My boots and pants did a good job of protecting me against the foliage, but occasionally unidentifiable grime would graze against my legs and send a shiver up my spine. Who knew something could be so gross yet so exciting at the same time?

The humid air around me and the constant fighting to walk the next step left me winded pretty quickly, so I was glad to feel the ground below me getting higher and higher until the water barely reached my ankles. I took a moment to observe my surroundings. I was standing on an elevated island, a couple of lilypads to my left and tall trees all around me. I was more vines hanging from the branches, and even more, climbing up the trees. The intricate pattern reminded me of a net, and I absentmindedly wondered how hard it would be to land an arrow on the tree without it touching any of them.

Well, I had told Avery I would practice shooting.

I took an arrow and prepared myself, drawing it all the way back. All of a sudden, I felt incredibly nervous. There was no way I was actually managing to pull off a shot like that. Still, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that no one was watching. I was alone.

"SCREEE"

A swarm of bats flew right above my head, scaring the living daylights out of me! Before I could even scream back, I was falling on my face, my arrow shooting off to who knows where. I spat out the dirty swamp water, trying desperately to clean the mud from my face as I heard a loud and indignant meow.

"Hey!" A black cat, that my arrow had apparently almost hit, was scurrying away from me. "Hold on! I'm sorry!" Without really thinking about what I was doing, I chased after it.

The cat weaved through the trees, jumping between lilypads and tree roots. It seemed to be unaffected by the rough terrain, and it led me through the swamp like a liquid blur. Even though I was struggling to run without my feet getting tangled up, I followed.

After a good ten minutes of running, I found myself in front of a house.

It was a small, wooden hut, with a large window and an open doorway. Being built in a swamp, it was propped up on four wooden columns, making it float well above my head. The roof looked to be flat, and there was a balcony with a lonely, potted mushroom.

The cat was staring at me, perched right on top of the ladders that led into the house.

"Hey there kitty cat.." I whispered, trying not to startle it further. "Are you okay? Is this where you live?" The cat continued staring at me, its bright yellow eyes piercing into my soul. "I'm gonna come up there to check on you, alright?"

Carefully, I trekked up the ladder. The inside of the hut was no less curious, with the most noticeable features being a cauldron on one corner and a potion stand on a table.

"Whoa," I told the cat, barely considering how silly I must have sounded. "You look like you have a really smart owner."

A quick look at the cat revealed it to be completely unharmed. I sighed in relief, my attention wandering back to the house I was now in.

"I wonder when they'll be back," I said. "It would be nice to meet another Builder or a villager."

The cat meowed behind me. I thought back to Avery, waiting for me because I wanted to explore a swamp of all things.

"Nah, I probably shouldn't." I turned back to face the cat. "I'm traveling with an enderman, you see. He's really nice, but any other builder would probably immediately try to kill him... Man, I already feel bad for making him wait so long for me. How long have I been in the swamp?"

Looking out the window had answered my question. I still had about an hour till sundown, but we should probably get going before then.

"Tell your owner they have a nice house for me, kay?" I told the cat, before climbing back down and heading towards where I'd left him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, do I love me some talking to a cat. Also! I learned that apparently the thing I've been doing where I give you a pretty significant chapter and then a lighter/more introspective one is actually a narrative technique and not emotional whiplash. So yay me! 
> 
> Do you know how some Minecraft advancements branch off each other?  
> Next up: A dangerous test.


	12. Sniper Duel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between taigas and illusions, the pair get separated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, when you have a checklist of important moments all laid out with a bunch of "and stuff happens" in between, you just end up skipping ahead to the important things a lot faster than expected.   
> Enjoy!

Taiga is a weird name for a biome. It's a forest, yes, but a specific kind of forest where it's constantly chilly and foxes and wolves weave through the trees. More importantly to Avery and me, It's the place where you can find berries.

We'd been picking berries for the majority of the morning, with both of us having pricked ourselves more than once. Avery had been delighted when I'd told him he could feed them to the foxes, and in a short amount of time, he'd been surrounded. I'd never petted a fox before. They're unfairly cute.

The comfortable workflow was broken when one of the foxes discovered my backpack and decided to steal my shears. I barely managed to notice the little rapscallion rummaging through it.

"Hey, wait!" I said, stumbling to get up without harming any of the other foxes at our feet. "That's mine!"

The fox's ears flattened before he booked it away from us. Abandoning the berries at my feet, without even thinking that they'd all be gone by the time I came back, I ran after it. I vaguely heard Avery try to get up and follow me.

I chased after the fox, stumbling repeatedly over roots and fallen branches, jumping over bushes, and startling a wolf or two. I was at a disadvantage. The fox knew this forest like that back of its paw, and I could barely walk two steps without tripping. It weaved through the trees like a slippery orange snake and didn't stop to rest. Unsurprisingly, I lost it. Which means that I was also lost myself. I looked around, trying to remember which way I had come.

"Great..."

"Well, well, well." I froze. "I didn't think it would be so easy to find your friend, dear Agatha."

I slowly turned around.

The woman behind me was strange. For starters, I couldn't pinpoint her age, though she seemed to be a bit older than me. She had short, dark hair, hidden under a black pointed hat with what appeared to be a giant emerald embellishing it. She had purple eyes, matching her robe, and a black cat purring at her feet. The cat felt familiar.

"Who- who are you?" I gulped, shrinking under the woman's threatening presence. I remember reading about witches, Villagers estranged from their communities for using potions and magic to harm others. There was never much information about them, no matter where or how hard I looked. Was she one of them?

"Oh, I'm nothing more than a curious fellow, wandering around the forests near my home." She smiled, though it only served to unnerve me further. "I was eager to meet the kind lady who'd paid my cat a visit while I was out."

The hut in the swamp.

"I-" What should I say? Was she mad that I'd stepped into her home without permission? How did she even know that had happened? I hadn't touched anything! Did... did the cat tell her about me? Could she talk with her cat?!

"Psy! Psy, where are you?" Avery screamed just behind me. I turned around just in time to see him come out from behind a tree and freeze at the sight of my company.

"Ah, and I'd been wanting to meet you as well." The witch's grin grew. Avery didn't move, though he'd started to shake. I desperately tried to catch his eyes, trying to tell him to get away, to let me try and handle her, even though I wasn't sure I could. I subconsciously checked what I had on me. There were my bow and arrows, thank goodness, and some bread and berries. It wasn't entirely hopeless. Still, he kept staring her down, neither of them willing to back down.

"Tell me, mister Enderman, what would your queen think of the company you're keeping?"

Avery's shoulders drop, his eyes widening. I looked at him, bewildered as well.

"Queen?" I blurted out without thinking. My mind had gone completely and utterly blank.

"And without her knowing, too!" The witch exclaimed, far too delighted. "My, my, dear Psy, however, do you trust such a gnarly creature?"

"Hey!" I felt my blood boil, despite the shaking in my knees. "It's his business! I chose not to pry!"

"Psy-" Avery was cut off by a glare from the woman, strange, purple particles beginning to float around her.

"Aren't you an interesting little girl?" Her smile was still plastered on her face, but I gulped at the sudden darkness in her eyes. "Such fire, but such fear... do you have the hidden spark of potential or are you nothing but a bunny running from danger?" She stepped closer to me, and I took a step back. Avery looked like he was ready to pounce at her.

"Perhaps I should give you a test."

The world went black around me.

* * *

I blinked. I was standing on an island, except the island was suspended in midair, with nothing but an endless void below me. How... how had I gotten there? Where was this place? I felt lightheaded like a veil was being cast over my mind. I tried to shake the feeling away, to no avail. Instead, I tried to explore my surroundings. The island I was standing on was small, no more than five blocks in diameter. There was a large tree on it and a small pond.

An arrow landed next to my head.

"You're an archer, aren't you dear?" I recognized the witch's voice, ducking away and trying to find her. It seemed as though her voice was coming out of midair. I only then noticed many, many more islands just like mine in a circle around a bigger one that almost looked like an arena. There was a skeleton on each island, and one of them had just fired at me.

"I think you might enjoy this challenge."

I froze, trying to count how many mobs I was up against. It had to be at least 30!

"What- How did you do this?!" I scream into the void. "Take me back!"

"Silly girl." Despite not being able to see her, I could hear the smirk in her voice. I shuddered. "You have to fight your way out."

"What- What does that even mean..?" I felt my voice waver as I sunk to the ground. What had happened? A minute ago we'd been playing with foxes... Oh, this was my fault, wasn't it? If I hadn't gone to explore the swamp if I'd insisted a bit harder...

Fight my way out. I checked. My bow was still with me. Did I have to reach the center? Maybe kill all of the skeletons? I had a snowball's chance in the nether of making it out alive then. Still... what choice did I have? Sit there and starve to death? That didn't sound like a nice alternative.

I picked myself up. I was going to die. I knew that. But, I thought, as I wiped away the tears that had started blossoming in the corners of my eyes, at least I could die fighting.

That was worth getting up, right?

I had no way to possibly kill every skeleton around me, so I had to hope that the exit was at the biggest island. I could cut down the tree and make a bridge towards it. I shuddered. Would I have enough wood? Would I be able to keep my balance? What if I didn't? What if I took one wrong step and _suddenly I was falling for all eternity down an endless void?_ I swallowed, burying my face in my hands. How was I even supposed to move when all that was below me was an endless sky? My heart was thumping against my chest, my palms were sweating and my stomach was turning. There was no hope. I was going to die, if not from the most terrible fall in the universe from starvation because I was too afraid to take the chance. My fingers dug into my skin, aggravating the cuts and nicks I'd gotten from picking berries. The pain brought me back to reality.

If I couldn't bear with my fear, then I was dead for sure. But if... If I managed to handle it, for once in my life, I could have a chance. I swallowed what tasted suspiciously like vomit, and took a deep breath.

"Don't think about the possibility of an endless fall right now, Psy," I told myself through gritted teeth. "Just think about getting wood. That's easy enough, right?"

I was in the middle of my task when another arrow zipped right above my head.

I turned around. I had completely forgotten about the skeletons! I had to get rid of them if I wanted to be able to do anything. I took out my bow and readied my arrow, praying to the heavens that I would hit, while at the same time telling myself there was no way in the nether.

The arrow flew for far, far too long, and the entire universe seemed to hold its breath alongside me. But it hit. The arrow landed in the skeleton's ribcage, and I could only hope it had broken a few things. But it hadn't been enough to kill it, and it had already shot another arrow my way. I ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding being pierced through the eye. I shot another arrow and narrowly missed. Well, that was closer to what I was expecting. I couldn't afford to waste time, so I loaded another arrow and shot it, just as the skeleton took its second shot. I jumped out of the way again, landing with my face on the ground. In a rush of adrenaline, I rolled forwards and stood up, whipping my head back to the neighboring island where the skeleton had become a pile of bones, a second arrow having had pierced through his skull. Its arrow had landed in the tree to my side.

My knees gave out from under me, and the next thing I knew I was kneeling in the grass and weeping like a baby. That had been terrifying. I whipped my head around to the island to the opposite of the one I'd just cleared. I couldn't see anything there. Had the skeleton walked off the edge? Or maybe it had gotten into a shootout with another skeleton. Any of those was a possibility.

I picked up the arrows that had landed next to me and finished cutting up the tree, refining the planks faster than I'd ever had in my life.

I stood at the edge of the island, my stomach threatening to return all the berries I'd eaten. Would it look like blood if I puked up? _Like the blood that would pool around my broken and deformed body if I fell and there was something waiting for me below?_

"NO DON'T THINK ABOUT IT!" I scolded myself, on the verge of tears. "Just... just put one block in front of the other and pretend you're just one block in the air! With a bed of slime blocks below you!"

The bald-faced lies I told myself didn't do much to calm my instincts. Still, I painfully started building a bridge to the middle island. One block, another block, ignore the endless sky below you. My knees were shaking and I wasn't even sure I was breathing. I was tearing up and about to throw up. Still, I kept going.

I heard the arrow before it hit me. I didn't even have the chance to see where it was coming from before I felt it hit against me full force.

It didn't hurt. I had an arrow piercing through my side, but my mind didn't register any pain. And I was falling. Falling an endless void. Falling from so high up I couldn't even see the ground, falling fast and faster every second and I couldn't even scream. My mind had gone blank, the beating of my heart so loud and fast it was deafening, my hands limp at my sides without even the force to try and grapple anything.

I blinked.

And suddenly I was laying on my back, gasping for breath, my heart beating painfully against my chest and my mind suddenly clear. I was drenched in a cold sweat and the blades of grass were picking uncomfortably at my cheeks.

But I was alive.

And the witch was standing over me.

My brain didn't have the power to process anything at that moment.

"Such a shame. It's so rare for me to be so wrong about someone. But I suppose it's no bother. I won't have to worry about you in this life."

She stepped over my head, leaving me to lie and let my brain catch up.

I smelled something burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man is it satisfying to put your characters through the emotional wringer. I wonder if I actually achieved my goal of killing you all slowly by leaving you on a cliffhanger... It's the first cliffhanger on this fic, but I have a feeling it won't be the last. 
> 
> Next up: Something is definitely burning.


	13. Into Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3

Crackling.

The stars were shining above me, dotting the sky in the constellations I'd already gotten used to, yet everything was unbearably bright. My heart was still racing, my mind not able to come up with a single coherent thought.

Shouldn't I be dead?

I'd fallen, I'd definitely fallen. What...

The rest of my brain caught up, and I jolted up to see the fire.

My fingers dug into the dirt around me. What was going on? I looked around. I was... it was the same forest... or taiga, or whatever we were in this morning... afternoon? How long had I spent in that nightmare arena for it to be night already? And why was I sitting just outside of it?

And more importantly WHY WAS IT ON FIRE?!

_It makes no sense that I freeze at the sight of fire._

Avery.

Was Avery still in there?

And on that thought, I stood up as quickly as I could and started running into the fire.

"Please- please let him not be in here." I pleaded as I jumped over the flames and began looking around. "Please let me be looking around for nothing..."

I could barely see anything with the light, blinding me and making everything seem closer than it actually was. The crackling of the fire, gentle from a distance was now roaring in my ears and I felt as though the entire world was falling on me, like the feeling from the fall refused to go away.

Which, as a burning tree branch fell down and almost crushed me under it, I realized wasn't that far from the truth.

The air suddenly got hotter, even more than I could have ever imagined. I caught a whiff of smoke and came down with a coughing fit. I would have to stay low... how would someone as tall as Avery be faring with the smoke?

"AVERY!" I screamed. "AVERY, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

And in a flash, a fireball grazed my nose.

The sound of clanking metal had been completely lost to my ears in between all the chaos, but now it was the only thing I could hear. A floating head, eyes enraged and almost human, but surrounded by unforgiving flames. Golden rods spinning around it threateningly, the light they made too bright to look at directly.

What the blazes was a Blaze doing in the overworld??

Had it caused the fire? Did that witch summon it somehow?

My time to think was cut short as another fireball was shot...

This one hitting me square in the stomach.

I was thrown back to the side of a burning tree, and I screamed in pain. My clothes were on fire and my stomach and back were equally burning. Tears escaped from my eyes.

But I'd already died once that day. I wasn't about to let it happen again.

With this much fire, there wasn't bound to be any water nearby, so I dropped to the ground to put out the fire as fast as possible. Me rolling on the floor also had the effect of putting me fairly off the range of any more incoming fireballs and giving me the chance to breathe with a lot less smoke in my lungs. I felt around for my weapons, feeling relieved that I still had my bow and arrows with me. A quick inventory check also told me that I had just as many arrows as I'd had when we'd set off that morning.

I didn't have much time to think before I had to roll away from another fireball, that landed where my back had been just a second prior, causing the tree to finally crumble and fall back. I managed to place an arrow on my bow before I had to dodge again, noticing how the Blaze made a churning sound before firing.

I hid behind a tree, arrow at the ready.

A churning sound.

I side-stepped out into the open and aimed at the monster.

The fireball landed next to me and I shot.

The arrow hit.

The Blaze was thrown back a little, the arrow lodging in its cheek. And as a little more distance was put between us, I realized something.

I was wasting time. Avery could still be in the fire. And I knew very, very well, he wouldn't be able to get out on his own.

So I turned tail and ran.

The burning leaves crumbled under my boots, adding to the never-ending noise that surrounded me. More trees were falling around me, and I couldn't care less. I would only later notice that I hadn't been afraid the entire time I was in that forest. My brain had stopped thinking altogether, and it seemed like it could only pump out orders to my legs to keep moving forwards without tiring. The world itself became a blur of light and darkness, of unrelenting heat and cold night air. My lungs burned, both from the smoke and the effort I was putting them through.

"AVERY!" I called again, the only thing that my brain could remember.

And suddenly, there he was.

He was standing in the middle of the fire, shaking. How long had he been there, standing in the middle of his worst fear? His eyes were open wide, pupils darting all around the space, not finding somewhere to focus when danger was everywhere. His claws were clutching his arms, what a recognized as a fruitless effort to ground himself, and his knees were just slightly bucked.

I could hear the thoughts rumbling through his head, louder than the fire around us.

My adrenaline dropped, but I couldn't feel afraid, not when he looked so utterly lost.

And briefly, I wondered _is this how he felt when he pulled me up from the cliff?_

"Hey, Avery" I approached slowly. His eyes widened even further when he saw me, his fangs slightly parted, any and all words catching in his throat. I recognized the feeling.

"Come on, let's get out of here." As gently as I could manage, I grabbed his wrist and started pulling him. For a second, he dug his heels even deeper into the ground, but as I looked at him apprehensively he let me guide him through the flames.

Where my mouth had gone off without me to hold it back, spreading all my insecurities bear for Avery to see, he'd remained deathly quiet. I tried to fill the silence with quiet words of reassurance, but there was only so much I could think of saying while trying not to get squished to death by a falling trunk. Before long, his claws had started digging into my hand, but I didn't mention it. I could deal with a little damage for his sake.

Not far ahead, I saw the promise of a clear night sky, the opening to a wide field completely devoid of fire. I could have almost cried in happiness. I turned back to face Avery. His gaze was unfocused, fear dominating his expression still. He hadn't even noticed...

"We're almost out, Avery, I mean it this time!" I smiled, trying to reassure him. Instead of turning towards me, however, he suddenly whipped his head to look at his right.

The arrow was still stuck in its head.

My brain instantly reverting into fighting mode, I stepped in front of Avery, very ineffectively trying to shield his 3-meter frame with my much smaller one. Before I could think to do anything else, I was met with a fireball to the face.

I cried out again, stumbling back into Avery, holding my burned and bleeding cheek. Without wasting more time, I pushed him to the side, clear of the way of another attack.

"Psy!" Avery screamed, seemingly having snapped out of his trance.

"Get out of here!" I pleaded with him, jumping back to avoid another fireball. I looked away from him and back at my opponent. I had no way of knowing if Avery would actually go, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to fight a fire monster.

Which meant, for once, it was up to _me_ to protect _him._

In a rush of adrenaline, the pain had become an afterthought, a faint tingling in my skin to go with the ringing in my ears. I drew another arrow, sidestepped to barely avoid a fireball, and, once it was tightly wound, I shot again.

The blaze let out a sizzling, shrieking sound when the second arrow connected with his head in what I had to believe was an incredible stroke of luck. Like melting metal, it crumbled to the ground, leaving behind a sizzling pool of fire and a singular, golden rod.

I'd seen blaze rods before. As components of potion stands, and that one lesson in school when they taught us how to grind them into powder without burning ourselves.

But this one... This one I'd earned.

That blaze was dead by my arrows.

In a daze, barely registering my surroundings, I walked over and picked the rod up. I took a moment to examine myself in its reflection. My expression was blank, disbelieving. Was that really the face of someone who'd defeated a blaze?

Before I could ponder my abilities any further, I felt myself be snatched up by a pair of strong, clawed hands and taken away from the fire that was very much still all around me.

I snapped out of my trance just as we were both exiting the forest. Avery kept carrying me a good way's away, still deathly quiet. I didn't know what to say either.

After what felt like hours of running away, Avery finally slowed down, out of breath, and unceremoniously tossed me to the ground before falling onto his knees.

"Avery?" I asked, slowly turning back to him. I tried placing my hand on his shoulder but pulled back when he flinched away. Instead, I sat in front of him and tried to talk him out of his funk as best as I could. "Hey, it's okay. We got out of there."

He looked at me, his eyes still glassy and lost, and opened his mouth only to produce a choking sound.

"It's okay," I repeated. "The fire is really far away now."

"What did-" Avery splurted out, his throat catching again. "What did she do to you?"

I fell quiet, the breath catching in my lungs.

"You..." Avery looked like he was on the verge of tears now "You suddenly got completely unresponsive and... like you were dead, but you were still standing... and then the next thing I know it was night and you were nowhere to be found!"

"I..." I didn't know how to begin to explain it. "I was in a floating island or something? And there were a lot of other floating islands around me and they all had skeletons in them and she told me I had to fight my way out? I-" I shook my head. "It was probably an illusion. And I'm pretty sure that was an actual fire out there. Are you okay?"

He stared at the ground. I took that as my answer.

"I'm gonna make a shelter so we can go to sleep," I said after a while.

Avery meekly nodded. When I stood up to get to work, though, he piped up again.

"I... I should tell you about... about my queen."

During all the day's insanity, I'd completely forgotten about that comment. I froze for a second. The things I'd been wondering about since I'd met him, splayed out right in front of me. But... I turned to look back. He was tired. I was tired. There had already been enough excitement for today.

"Tomorrow," I answered, and kept on building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I could have made my boy suffer more, but this is enough for now. I have to save up some angst for the inevitable nether arc >:3  
>  Writing characters with horrible phobias is fun. 
> 
> Next up: Exposition over cake


End file.
